Bala Mubarak: A Secular Nigeria; A ‘P’ In Psychology? -By Bright Ogundare

Two months ago, the president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, Mr. Bala Mubarak was arrested at his Kaduna residence by men of the Nigerian police force. This arrest was prompted by a petition written by an Islamist group accusing Mr. Mubarak of blasphemy against Prophet Muhammad through a post on his Facebook account. He was transferred from Kaduna to Kano a few days after his arrest.

Unfortunately, 9 weeks after his arrest, the police have continued to detain him without access to a lawyer or a release plan. These tragic actions have once again put the position of Nigeria as a secular state in question. It is comic that despite the 1999 constitution stating that the Nigerian state must not adopt any religion and guaranteeing freedom of religion, Nigeria, has openly expressed by some states especially in the North is still a typical 14th-century sharia enclave (This, however, doesn’t also excuse the South from the religious extremism).

Practically, Nigeria is a pseudo-theocracy masked as a democratic country. The only place religious laws do not hold is the wanton greed, corruption, and kleptocratic nature of our ruling class. From states in the North imposing sharia laws on its citizens to educational institutions owned by religious bodies depriving its students and staffs a right to their religious beliefs, Nigeria can not even pretend to be secular.

For more than one decade, the Boko Haram terrorist group built on the Islamist religious extremism has terrorized the country and despite the massive financial and human resources committed to fighting them, not much progress has been made. This is not disconnected from the fact that the Nigerian state is tactically structured to support and breed religious extremism leading to terrorism.

In reality, there is no much difference between the laws operating in areas controlled by the terrorists and the average sharia Northern state. Politicians continue to incite religion to win elections. Many of them have also threatened openly that any attempt to introduce secular laws will fail. Captured terrorists are treated with kid gloves and many are even given tactical hero treatments while the state forces continue to hunt down critics of religion. This is a pointer to the fact that extremism is receiving tactic support from the Nigerian ruling class.

The war against terrorism is an ideological war but it seems the Nigerian state is set up to support terrorism in the war against terrorism. Mr. Mubarak Bala was arrested for blasphemy and has been held incommunicado in a supposed secular state and this is a red flag. It means extremism not only need to resort to terror to defend and impose their religion on others, but they also have a willing accomplice in the Nigerian security forces. Every day, Christians and Muslims bombard us with their evangelisms and speak against the gods of the traditional religions and rain criticism at unbelievers using all avenues in the media and even government structures, yet no one raises a finger. Why is it then that an irreligious person can not speak against a religion? What happened to the freedom of thought? What happened to freedom of speech?

It should also be noted that the police have denied Mr. Mubarak access to his lawyers, this obviously is an act of extremism and an act of terrorism using state apparatus. This obviously must not continue, Nigeria has bled in terms of financial and human resources due to extremism for more than a decade and we must get serious in tackling it. Unfortunately, if the Bala Mubarak case continues to be a norm, then we are fooling ourselves fighting terrorism our structure supports.

Bright Ogundare, a member of the Humanist Association of Nigeria writes from Lagos. He can be contacted via mail at brightogundare@gmail.com