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The issue of religion and how it has affected the development and unity of Nigerians and Africans was the subject of heated debate among scholars at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
Prof Chibueze Udeani, the Chair of Missiology and Dialogue of Religions, Catholic Theology Faculty, Julius Maximillian University, Germany, provoked the debate through his lecture entitled, “Religion: the Core African Epidemic of the 21st Century”, presented at a Public Lecture organised by the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, (CODESRIA) in collaboration with the Department of Social Work, University of Nigeria.
Udeani said that although Karl Max described religion as the opium of the masses, the concept has a more devastating effect on Nigerians than the opium.
“Religion is the main epidemic that has balkanised African unity and retards our development”, he said while stressing that the problem started as a result of Nigerians adoption of foreign religions in their search for God.
Such adoption, according to him, robed Nigerians and Africans of the unique experience of encountering the ultimate reality through their culture and tradition. He said that every religion is an elective shadow of a particular people, which could corrupt the belief of others when exported outside its place of origin.
“Africans have made mistake of applying other people’s experience of ultimate reality in solving our own problems, why can’t we have our own unique experience?” the religion scholar queried.
He suggested that Africans should develop the courage to be Africans in other to face other races. “We need to burn what we are adoring and adore what we have burnt,” Udeani said.
Prof Damian Opata, an adherent of Igbo traditional religion said that his religion does not condole fundamentalism, which is a common characteristic that had pitched one religion against the other in Nigeria and the rest of the world.
The Associate Dean, Faculty of the Social Sciences, University of Nigeria, Prof Njoku differed by stating that there was nothing wrong with most religions practised in Nigeria. “The problem is the irreligious in our religion”, Njoku, who is also a Catholic priest, said.
Chairman of the event, Prof Romanus Ezeokonkwo lamented that the proliferation of many religion organisations in Nigeria had added to the confusion of the people on the best way to worship God, adding that the lecture had awakened people’s consciousness on the need to interrogate the contribution of religion to Africa’s development.
