’Tunji Ajibade; tunjioa@yahoo.com;
Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo made a remark that I zeroed in on Christians in northern Nigeria. I do because they mostly don’t wear the tag as they should. Let the reader judge from the following. I went to the premises of a media organisation in the north some years ago in search of a material of historical importance. A Muslim-Fulani public figure suggested it. I spoke to a fellow journalist, a female Christian. I tried to explain in a way that might help her suggest a useful lead, quoting the Muslim public figure. A male Christian colleague (from one of north’s minority ethnic groups) of the female journalist was listening to us. His mien changed the moment I mentioned the Fulani man. I was still talking with the lady, not him, when he shouted at me: “She doesn’t know, ah, you can go.” This ‘Christian’ was openly rude to me (because he hated Fulani) in a way no Fulani had ever been rude to me.
I’ve conducted interviews with many university students from Christian-dominated tribes in the north. One question about the situation in their states generally sends them into the usual talk about how Muslims hate Christians, and how the Fulani want to wipe out Christians and Islamise the north etc. I notice their unwillingness to make genuine friends across ethnic and faith lines, and let their supposed enemies prove themselves. They are stuck in the ‘enemy’ narrative handed over to them from pre-colonial period. (This way, how can they display Christian love?). I’ve often told these younger ones that they will perpetually close doors against themselves, missing opportunities if they stick to such age-long stereotypical narrative.
A few years ago, I attended a public event where an aide (Christian) to a prominent Muslim politician addressed his tribesmen from Christian-dominated communities in the north. He spoke to mostly young men on education, job, politicking, delayed gratification as well as self-discipline for personal development. He mentioned habits among his people which he said tended to hamper their personal development. His intervention followed some questions and remarks from his listeners. I noticed that many of the remarks, as usual, were about how ‘others’ denied them opportunities, not what they did as individuals that tended to make them unprepared to seize opportunities.
This aide spoke against negative tendencies among his people, including a majority of young men who completed secondary school education and without tangible means of income put teenage girls in the family way. It happens everywhere, but it’s also rampant in Christian-dominated communities in the north. The aide knew this so he addressed it. He emphasises that it’s less of how ‘others’ discriminate against them because they are Christians, but how responsibly they conduct their personal affairs in order to develop themselves and be widely marketable.
Several years ago, I sat with some of my Muslim friends in the north. While we were discussing, one of them said a Christian friend of his, married and a member of a Christian-dominated tribe in northern Nigeria, told him that there was nothing wrong in marrying more than one wife. This Christian friend of his already had two wives and he boasted that if he had money he would marry more. The question that my Muslim friend wants answers to is why a Christian has more than one wife when Christians believe that their faith doesn’t permit it. This is the closest Christian friend that my Muslim friend has but what he’s getting is a mixed message. This northern ‘Christian’ obviously left my Muslim friend more confused. Add that to how Muslims come across alcohol-drinking churchgoers in the north.
Also, I’ve listened to friends in northern states who are not Christians talk about girls and women from tribes that are predominantly Christians. What they say show they are convinced that their girls who are not Christians are better off morally. They have innumerable escapades and scandals involving girls from Christian-dominated tribes to point to. So if their friends marry girls from Christian-dominated tribes, they lose respect for them. Equally, some years ago, a Muslim governor in a northern state acted when the behaviour of the chairman of his state’s chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria became embarrassing. Apart from other strange news in town at the time, the chairman’s office was alleged to be practically a brothel. With regard to the mismanagement of funds and resources of the office, disconcerting news made non-Christians say, “So, Christians do that kind of thing too.” In order to clean the stable, the Muslim governor sacked the state’s CAN chairman.
I knew a well-educated man from one of the Christian-dominated minority ethnic groups who lived in a town different from where his wife was. His first son was with him; he also had his girlfriend living with him in the same house. A few years later, I learnt of how the son who was still a student put his female cousin in the family way. Father and son put all of that on display where they lived in a Muslim-dominated neighbourhood. Some years ago, I called one of my Muslim friends on phone but he was no longer reachable. I called a mutual friend of ours who informed me that my friend was killed in a Christian-dominated community in the north. My late friend, Dr Habu Kamara, was a senior civil servant in his state and he regularly travelled to represent his government in Abuja. During one of those spells when there were no farmers-herdsmen clashes, he was driving to Abuja through this Christian-dominated community two states away from his when he was stopped by those who thought he was Fulani (which he wasn’t). A search party found Kamara’s burnt remains in his car inside the bush weeks later.
A few days ago, the Nigerian Army began to pump water out of a pond in a Christian-dominated community in the north. An army Major General had gone missing near this community and the information was that his car was in the pond. ‘Christian’ women resisted, claiming on TV that their husbands and children would die if the water in the pond was pumped out. The Army found the Major General’s car in this pond which was actually an abandoned mine pit. Some years ago, leaders of a major church denomination in the north collected funds from some quarters. A pastor spoke against how they expended the funds. The pastor was murdered and his body, put in a sack, was dropped in the bush. A night watchman saw the vehicle used for the purpose and the church leaders were identified. In the course of the last Christmas season, a Christian-dominated town in the north held its cultural day event. Many churchgoers were present, and on display at the event which was shown on TV weren’t just cultural dances and songs, but the inevitable accompaniments of idol worship. When a journalist asked a Christian woman present at the event for her comment on the outing, she excitedly said performances by masqueraders made her feel the event was Christmas itself.
It’s sad the kind of violence being perpetrated across the north. But to perpetually categorise localised farmers-herdsmen clash which spurs endless reprisal attacks on either side as some grand plan to wipe out Christians in the north is unacceptable. I notice that some quietly clap when Christian-dominated communities launch reprisals on ‘enemies’; but they cry annihilation when ‘enemies’ strike back. Should this cycle continue? When a female servant of God was murdered in Abuja not long ago, the General Overseer of her church prayed that those responsible would become servants of God. After my intervention last Friday, some ‘Christians’ sent me SMS hatefully promising vengeance and wrath upon their ‘enemies’ in the north. Christian leaders too need to adopt a different narrative and approach. For instance, Christianity in northern Nigeria has largely become an identity tag, sometimes used in pursuing ethnic-oriented issues, not a lifestyle that non-Christians want to emulate. Servants of God everywhere should work on this. Why? The Christian faith says when the ways of a man please his Maker, He makes his enemy to be at peace with him. It’s the reason I think Osinbajo’s remark that time basically called his fellow Christians to repentance. It’s what Christians in northern Nigeria should focus on.
Concluded.
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