Religion matters in Nigerian politics

Contrary to the narratives being pushed in support of the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) party by the promoters of the religiously imbalanced presidential candidacy, religion matters in Nigerian politics. The choice of Kashim Shettima, a Muslim from the northern part of Nigeria, as running mate by Ahmed Bola Tinubu, a Muslim and presidential candidate of the APC, is a tinder box that is already igniting across the Christian divide of Nigeria. The widespread protestation and anger with which the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the APC was rejected by most of Christian Nigeria is a clear indication that religion matters, and, if not, those who claimed it didn’t matter would not organize an episcopal circus that starred charlatans dressed in robes of bishops acting out a script of endorsement of APC’s Muslim-Muslim ticket by the Body of Christ in Nigeria at the ceremony to announce Shettima as the vice-presidential candidate.

While the APC can be commended for working towards a shift of presidential power to the South after an eight-year stint in the North by 2023 when the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari comes to an end, its pairing of two Muslims on its presidential ticket violates the critical component of religious balancing that must go along with it in order to fulfil the constitutional requirements of inclusivity, equity, fairness and justice to all ethno-geographic and religious groupings in Nigeria.

Whereas, it is only fair to admit that the refusal of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to zone its presidential ticket to the South and, instead, picked its candidate from the Muslim North, Nigeria’s most populous voting bloc, citing “win-ability” over the morality of zoning, made APC’s choice of a running mate from the same demography a realistic inevitability, a lack of wide consultations with critical stakeholders in Christian Nigeria and an improper manner of communicating “competence” as the reason for picking Shettima has elicited a backlash that may derail the ruling party’s electioneering train ahead of the 2023 presidential election.

In a polity that is deeply divided along ethnic and religious fault lines and whose political process is primarily driven by the politics of ethnic and religious identity, it is intellectually dishonest and politically fraudulent to posit that religion doesn’t matter in the politics of Nigeria. In fact, religion is the major tool of election mobilization by men of God from the pulpit on Sundays and Fridays. And this is particularly true of the Muslim North. Since the arrival of the Salafi brand of Islam in the region half a century ago, its theology of non-separation of religion and the state has corrupted the soul of mainstream Islamic theological framework in Nigeria to the extent the advent of the Fourth Republic in 1999 gave birth to political Islam. And some 24 years later, by 2023, the Muslim-Brotherhood-of-Egypt-style political Islam has successfully knitted the predominantly Muslim peoples in the north-west, north-east and north-central Nigeria into a voting behemoth that is incapable of voting outside ethno-religious considerations. This is because the goal of political Islam is religious domination in a religiously plural geographic entity such as Nigeria but only as a step towards the fulfilment of the original Salafi doctrine of a puritan Islamic state, wherein non-Muslims are not of equal status with Muslims.

In 2015, President Buhari and his APC became the ultimate beneficiaries of political Islamic in Nigeria, when a near total support of the entire Muslim North secured the overwhelming bulk of votes that got them elected to the presidency of Nigeria. Unfortunately, the domino effect of President Buhari’s electoral victory, courtesy of the groundswell of support from the Muslim North, has been an elevation of his northern Muslim interests in his appointments, policies, programmes, associations and even visitations over the rest of non-Muslim Nigeria. President Buhari’s unapologetic sectionalism, nepotism, cronyism and favouritism on the basis of ethnicity and religion has sharply polarised Nigeria along ethno-geographic lines, with ethno-religiously disadvantaged peoples feeling excluded and marginalised in Buhari’s Nigeria. This is why a Muslim-Muslim ticket on Buhari’s APC has justifiably raised fears across Christian Nigeria with many rejecting the same-faith ticket from within and outside the party.

Interestingly, the entrenched culture of political Islam in northern Nigeria, which makes it seemly impracticable for the people of the region to vote outside ethno-religious considerations, has earned it a respectable place in the politics in Nigerian politics as the ultimate formula for winning election in Nigeria. In Buhari’s Nigeria, the religious bigotry of Nigeria’s largest voting bloc, where Muslims only vote for Muslims, has seen the two main political parties making frantic efforts to appeal to this political base with one, PDP, completely jettisoning the option of southern Christian candidate for a northern Muslim, and the other, APC, pairing two Muslims in order to contain the opposition in the Muslim North. The choice of Shettima, a Muslim, has a lot to do with religion, otherwise, if religion didn’t matter, a competent Christian would have emerged from the North as a running mate to Tinubu, a Muslim from the South.

But like the proverbial last straw that broke the camel’s back, the normalization of political Islam and its acceptance as a cherished political virtue by establishment politicians in Buhari’s Nigeria, to the extent of contemplating either a continuation of northern Muslim presidency or a Muslim-Muslim presidency, which completely excludes Christians from the first and second position in the leadership of Nigeria for another eight years, may have provoked the advent political Christianity going into the 2023 presidential election. If religion matters in Nigerian politics, then it should matter. The Body of Christ in Nigeria appears no longer willing to turn the other cheek when slapped on one and there is now a political awakening in Christian Nigeria as a containment measure against political Islam. To make matters worse, the presidential candidate of the APC, Tinubu, and his running mate are right about now pandering too much to bigotry of the large numbers of voters in the Muslim North as not to give a hoot about the imperative of constructive engagements with the leaders of Christian Nigeria before, during and after his nomination of a fellow Muslim as vice-presidential candidate in order to address their legitimate concerns.

Ordinarily, religion should not matter in the politics of a modern nation as citizens are supposed to be assessed by the strength of their character, competence and capabilities as relevant to political leadership requirements without prejudice to their ethnicity or religion. But in Nigeria, a country of tribesmen and religious bigots, religion matters and the APC’s same-faith ticket is the clearest indication so far that religion matters in Nigerian politics. And this choice may come with the justifiable consequence of a revolt of Christian Nigeria against the ruling APC and the main opposition PDP.

For the first time in the history of Nigeria, the elections may see a situation where Christians will be similarly voting for only Christians as a justifiable move against their political annihilation in the country of their birth. And in a country that is evenly split between Christians and Muslims, where no section alone can get a President elected without support from another, Christian Nigeria can no longer be taken for granted in the scheme of presidential politics; and political Christianity may play a decisive, if not deciding, role in the outcome of the 2023 presidential election.