Opinion: Regulating religious preaching in the North (1)

by Ibrahim Waziri

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…I submitted, with emphasis on Northern Nigeria, that  the Nigerian nation must be interested in regulating religious preaching and practice for the restoration of peace and fair neighbourliness, economic and social progress to the region.

The idea of a nation since time is that of a representation of what is more of an ideological entity than a geographical entity. It is always a prerequisite for nations, to be truly born, to have serious and entrenched interest in the ideologies their subjects hold to heart. In fact for nations to succeed, they must be seen by their subjects as being the custodians of the ideologies the subjects adhere to.

In Western countries, and specifically USA, even manifestos of political parties are rooted in civic society. That is, it is easy for a party to be heard making legality or otherwise of issues in policy as abortion based on the nation’s religious and cultural heritage. In essence, even nations built around the concepts of secularism, can only succeed, if the secularism can be located within the rich heritage of the people.

It is based on this understanding that in my outings in the past few weeks, while discussing the circumstances of the Hausa-Fulani in Nigeria, I submitted, with emphasis on Northern Nigeria, that  the Nigerian nation must be interested in regulating religious preaching and practice for the restoration of peace and fair neighbourliness, economic and social progress to the region. This conclusion was not properly appreciated by some readers as others see it as a very tall order or even an impracticable suggestion.

I believe that there was a time in our history when some of our political empires operated within the outlined requirement. I believe there was a time and especially at the creation of the Nigerian nation state and at independence when we departed away from the ordained norm, hence our present predicament. I believe it is not too late now if we have a committed leadership with the needed foresight and patriotism to impose this requirement on a win-win template for all.

According  to historical records, Muslims in Northern Nigeria once lived under the political influence of the Saifawa Dynasty, then  under Songhai Empire, then under Kanem-Bornu Empire and the most recent one before the Nigerian nation state, the Sokoto Chaliphate. In all of those empires, the wisdom in the idea that nations are ideological entities first before any other thing, was properly appreciated. In the Sokoto Caliphate in particular, the empire was Ash’arite in theology and Malikite in jurisprudence. The focus then was not only Islam but among the various stripes of Islamic theologies of which Mu’tazili and Ash’ariy were the dominant then, they settled for Ash’ariy theology. It was then reduced to the best framework upon all their social realities could be explained. On jurisprudence which provided the framework on which every action or speech was judged to be right or wrong, they chose Maliki among the  three other most popular Sunni schools of thought which were Hanafi,  Shafi’i and Hanbali. Anybody caught preaching using any other framework in the public space used to be ostracised from the society.

Fast forward to the British conquest of the region and its imposition of the criminal code as the framework for judging what is right or wrong among a people who never see any social and religious connection between them and the new framework. To the days of independence and the Northern region which saw the imposition of penal code as the best framework by the then premier of the region Ahmadu Bello and his allies. Penal code was actually, in the main, their Maliki jurisprudence. It only abrogated what it viewed as hard punishments for certain categories of serious crimes as it also accommodated the interest of the minority Christian population of the new ideological entity (nation) Northern Nigeria.

Ahmadu Bello seriously struggled with the intellectuals and opinion leaders of his first constituency, Muslims, to agree with him to give them a completely new and fresh framework of perceiving their realities. He of course had an unquantifiable state power at his disposal as the fact of his ancestral link with Sheik Usman Danfodio was used to justify his status as someone who can give the Muslims an undiluted but trusted interpretation of their realities. But already within the window of British conquest and independence there came signs of division among the stakeholders that encouraged the preachment and spread of ideas that were completely foreign to the environment.

But nature has a way of working as Ahmadu Bello did not live long and the Nigerian state had to be restructured with a stronger centre and weaker units. It was most unfortunate that this centre or its first operators did not have the deep appreciation that nations are first ideological entities than geographical entities.

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Read this article in the Leadership Newspapers
Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

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