Last week, the Kaduna State Police Command demonstrated probably their swiftest response to any petition ever when they arrested self-professed atheist and president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, Mubarak Bala, over his Facebook posts that mocked certain religious truths. The petition to the Kano State Commissioner of Police, Habu Sani, was signed by one S.S. Usman & Co of Zoo Road, Kano. In that three-page grievance, Usman accused Bala of ‘blasphemy’ and urged the police to act so ‘Muslims would not take the law into their (own) hands.’
Seeking a comprehensive annihilation of the humanist, a certain Halima Sa’adiya Umar also created a petition on change.org captioned “Mubarak Bala’s Facebook Account Should be Closed.” Thankfully, the website has pulled the petition, but before they did, almost 20, 000 people had co-signed the need to deplatform Bala. His accusers are not only angling for him to be tried for actions that might lead to a breach of peace, but some of them also called for his head in a rather graphic language.
These are frightening developments.
For lawyers to sponsor a petition asking for someone to be prosecuted for expressing atheistic views, and to also note in that document that they could resort to “taking the law into their own hands” if the police did not act as prompted, means the herd violence in defence of religion that is associated with the almajiris is being taken over by some members of an educated class, the ostensibly “learned” fellows. Historically, mere accusations of blasphemy in northern Nigeria have been enough to get people killed without serious repercussions. It seems the mob violence is now taking a “learned” turn.
If the case against Bala sails through, Nigeria’s anti-blasphemy laws, kept in the books to protect the religious sensibilities of a certain class, will be a fashioned weapon in the hands of those seeking to repress other people’s agencies. Unlike the mob, they are not going to be beheading people, but they will achieve a similar goal through manipulating legal instruments. Along with the people who asked that Bala’s Facebook account should be closed because he says things that make them uneasy, the mechanisms of law and social justice appeals will be readily available for them to ratify an insidious agenda of suppression.
Some commentators, in their peace-making bid, urged non-believers not to needlessly rile others by criticising their religion. While their view is not wrong, I also think people who are prone to offence need to accept that people like Bala do not owe it to anyone to self-censor. There is a good reason that social media accounts come with the “block” button. Those things were designed to shut out pesky irritants who want to violate our mental spaces with their nuisance. His accusers should learn to use them. If anyone, on their own initiative, chooses to refrain from criticising either religion or atheism, it should be seen as a courtesy afforded to others to maintain a healthy social atmosphere. That privilege should not be forced upon anyone. Freedom is not freedom if you do not get to use it.
Bala’s arrest, however, fits into the ever-growing list of repressive acts and abuses of power by this present regime. From imprisonments to disregard for judicial processes, proposals of inane social media laws, allusions to authoritarian China as a model of human rights, harassment, massacres and mass-burials, they have checked every box. They even hassled the man who named his dog “Buhari,” going to the extent of trying him for the crime of inciting public peace while those that attacked him over that incident were not charged.
For lawyers to be asking the police to arrest Bala because of his unsettling commentaries, and repeatedly insinuate they would resort to violence if the request was not granted, it is a testimony to how the ethics that regulate social interactions devolve from actions of authority figures. Once the leaders turn the abuse of power into a norm, other people with a measure of influence would take a cue and act similarly. The Bala development is not merely incidental. The will to repress freedom, an expanding feature of this present regime, is percolating through various spheres of society and doing damage at a level we have not yet quantified.
Just lately, the Katsina State Police arrested three people for the offence of “conspiring and intentionally insulting” the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), and the state governor, Aminu Masari, on social media. In their spin announcing the arrests, they warned the public that the police would not “fold its arms and watch while disgruntled elements violate the sacred laws of the land.” It is not enough that the police descended on people expressing their rights as citizens, the police command also construes its violation of their rights as a theological exercise of sorts.
Precisely which “sacred” laws of the land prevent people from insulting or ridiculing their president, governors, and any public officer? Any public officer that cannot contain ridicule or criticism should turn in their employment badge. You cannot be misruling a country and also expect people not to react in whatever manner they choose. For a country where too much power is concentrated in the hands of public officials (thus making abuse rife), the right to ridicule your leaders is a form of civic participation that should never be discounted. What other recourses do people making fun of Buhari and Masari have other than their naked voices?
The arrest of both Bala and those accused of insulting Buhari in Katsina, might have taken place in different states, but is no mere coincidence. Any society that makes blasphemy into a thing is also one that will gradually lose the ability to distinguish between disrespect against an invisible God and a visible human figure that they have deified. It is only a matter of time before the benightment that extinguishes democracy will settle upon such land. Meanwhile, that same attitude of ordinary humans to consider themselves too important to be insulted has penetrated the polity to the point some governors even banish or jail people that allegedly insulted them.
Finally, whether we support Bala’s actions or not, we owe it to ourselves to speak in his support. We cannot afford to let the craziest among us take over the asylum. Matters of religion are always political, whether they latch on to the reigning partisan politics of the day or not. When people complain about blasphemy, it is not God that is hurt by what one person-out of seven billion humans-says on Facebook. It is their human feelings and cultivated sensibilities they want to protect. That drive for self-preservation can lead up to extremities.
To an extent, it is understandable why people get worked up when you criticise their faith. Religion, by its very nature, is polemical and primal. When people subscribe to a faith, they are not just pitching their tent with an ideology, they are also taking a definitive stand against another. Sometimes, even at the expense of their lives.
The antagonistic feature of religion is one reason the idea of a “religion of peace,” is an oxymoron. There is no religion of peace; there are only people at peace with themselves practising one religion or the other. When thousands of people get so unsettled at one man’s opinion that they seek to suppress his thoughts, you know they are not at peace with either themselves or their God. Those secure in their faith do not get moved by the opinions of an unbeliever to the point they want such a person harmed.
A society like Nigeria where religion is prevalent cannot afford to let folks railroad the people into self-subjugation by threatening to “take the law into their own hands.” The police should have used the opportunity to remind the petitioners that taking the law into one’s own hands is a crime they take seriously, not pander to their intimidation. Without standing up for the law and to those who threaten to violate it, we are all doomed to a lifetime of subservience to the barbarians.
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