The Chief Justice of Nigeria, Tanko Muhammad, plunged himself into an unnecessary controversy when he canvassed amending the 1999 Constitution to extend Islamic Sharia law and “accommodate some of the concerns of Muslims.” He wants the basic law amended to “suit our own position as Muslims” and canvassed the supposed numerical strength of supporters to ram the changes through. Such sentiments are very emotive in this country and the weighty position he occupies should have made him more circumspect before dabbling publicly in nationally divisive issues.
Two weeks after the comments were credited to him at a forum where he was represented by Muhammed Danjuma, the Grand Khadi of Niger State, the CJN has not disowned or clarified them, suggesting that they are indeed his public views. To be clear, every Nigerian is entitled to hold and canvass views on any issue. However, Muhammad is no ordinary citizen. As the CJN, he is the country’s most senior judge, chair of the Supreme Court and head of the judiciary, with wide influence in his concurrent position as chairman of the National Judicial Commission. Judicial officers should adopt a public position of strict neutrality in the face of frequent tension among the population over religious issues.
There are other reasons for the CJN and, indeed, every judicial officer in the land to scrupulously avoid canvassing opinions in the public space on the country’s sectarian divide. Nigeria’s history is partly written in the blood of thousands of victims of sectarian blow-ups, mostly between adherents of the two major faiths – Islam and Christianity. Apart from conflicts centred on direct quarrels over faith, in the North, conflicts between ethnic nationalities and between cattle herders and farming communities, also invariably morph into religious wars. Figures of casualties in riots and clashes vary, but are nonetheless scary. Estimates of deaths in sectarian clashes compiled by the Council of Foreign Relations’ National Security Tracker stated that almost 2,000 were killed in 2014, fuelled by Boko Haram terrorism, while sectarian clashes in 2000, 2001, 2004 and 2008 in several northern states left thousands more dead.
It did not even start recently: there were riots by fringe sects in Kano and Maiduguri, Borno State, in the early 1980s; the surreptitious entry of Nigeria into the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation as a full member in 1986 and the subsequent tension that sparked riots in Kano, Bauchi, Kaduna and other northern states, while incidents such as attempts to expand faith centres, stage evangelism crusades and even cartoons published in far away Denmark were excuses for bloodletting and mayhem in the northern states.
Insensitivity has poisoned relations among the normally friendly nationalities. The CJN’s statement that “…we have the number to amend the constitution to suit or own position as Muslims,” echoes that propensity of the elite to ride roughshod over others and assault Nigeria’s secularity.
Impunity has been taken to a dangerous level since 2000 when, one after the other, 12 northern states went beyond what the constitution allowed by legislating penal aspects of Sharia law. The riots that followed the move claimed thousands of lives. In Kaduna, riots in February, March and May 2000 killed 1,295, persons according to a government judicial enquiry, but put at between 2,000 and 5,000 persons by Human Rights Watch and media tallies. In Yelwa and Shendam in Plateau State in 2004, over 1,000 died in attacks and reprisals. There are lawsuits that border on the clash of faiths, including the wearing of religiously symbolic clothing in public institutions that stipulate uniforms, some of which will inevitably berth at the appellate courts. There should be no hint of bias when they do, and this confers an ethical responsibility on judicial officers to scrupulously avoid publicly getting involved in contentious issues to preserve the judicial aura of impartiality. Only last week, the United States Department of State ranked Nigeria among countries that tolerate violations of religious freedom, placing her among Countries of Particular Concern under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, along with human rights abusers like Eritrea, North Korea, Iran, Myanmar, China and Pakistan.
The ruling class should focus on policies, programmes that would enhance the welfare of the greatest good of the greatest number of Nigerians, and leave religion to clerics, private organisations and the NGOs. Successful countries with the best human development indices and most advanced economies wisely separate state and religion and provide an enabling environment for all to practise their faith within the law. The top 10 most peaceful countries as ranked by the Global Peace Index 2019, with Iceland, New Zealand, Portugal, Austria and Denmark at first to fifth place respectively, run secular systems. But, among the five least peaceful, four – Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and Iraq – are riven by violent sectarian strife. Once on a trajectory to global top rank, the cynical manipulation of religion by successive Pakistani leaders has made it a hotbed of intolerance, extremism and a recruiting ground for global terror groups.
In Nigeria, those states that have persistently elevated religion above development are the poorest and rank lowest in human development indices. Out-of-school population is highest in the North-West and North-East at an average 45 per cent, according to UNICEF, where state governments appear obsessed with promoting religion in defiance of the express constitutional prohibition of adopting a state religion. Poverty rates are also highest in the northern states. Electoral violence and random brigandage are rife in Rivers, which the state governor, Nyesom Wike, has been labelling a “Christian state.” Politicising religion brings neither piety nor progress, else, Rivers would have been an oasis of peace and Zamfara prosperous rather than being the epicentre of banditry that it is today.
What is needed are amendments to strengthen Nigeria’s secularity, erase ambiguities that allow the federal and state governments to dabble in religious matters, and promote tension and division among the people while driving the country deeper into poverty. Judicial officers should help this process by steering clear of divisive public interventions on religion.
