Extremism and a Quest for a Secular Nigeria -By Aliyu Bashir Limanci

Extremism is not peculiar to religion, we have ethnic and religious bigots in all layers of our societies. However, religious extremists are the biggest threats that threaten our existence as a country. The continued detention of Mubarak Bala and the recent religious tension fueled by the accusations of blasphemy levelled against the famous Kano-based cleric, Sheikh Abduljabbar have continued to underscore our extremist tendencies when it comes to religion.

No sooner had the crisis unfolded than I wrote a series of articles about the need for us to make amends to the way we treat blasphemy cases and fully embrace secularity, a system that is free from religious influences. Guess what had ensued after my missives? I was suddenly accused of blasphemy for being sympathetic to the plights of the same of people accused of blasphemy. My pictures were widely shared on Facebook groups where hardened Salafi adherents were members with some openly calling for my head and one guy vowing to kill me on sight. My rented house was touched, and despite losing virtually everything, I and my family members were lucky to survive the fire which razed down the house. I also received a series of death threats on Facebook and text messages which prompted me to leave Kano and send my wife home to live with her parent for the time being. Sometimes, speaking the truth has a lot of consequences and I am a witness to that. Aside from losing my business, I was left wondering if the activism is worth sacrificing everything for.

The current democratic setting is far from perfect, but at least it is better than any other system we could ever advocate for. One of the benefits of secular Nigeria is freedom of expression and thoughts is safeguarded by the constitution that offers every citizen a free reign to practice what he believes as long as it does not go against the laws of the land. As a secular Nigerian, I firmly believe in gender equality, freedom of thought and nobody should be persecuted for his sexual and religious orientation. Blasphemy laws should be amended or even scrapped altogether because so many people are using the laws as weapons to target people in order to achieve certain objectives.

People like Mubarak Bala, Sheikh Abduljabbar and Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky have drawn millions of people away from the mainstream beliefs, and this has earned them many a hater to the extent that some people justify their persecution out of sheer hatred and extremism. The question is, are these individuals more dangerous to national security than Boko Haram and marauding bandits whose years of terrors have killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions? So why are we so obsessed with persecuting these people whereas the Nigerian democracy has allowed everyone to practice what he truly believes? The real problem is bigotry and people can hardly reason beyond a prism of extremism when the hate cannot allow them to reason or come to terms with the reality of the fast evolving world. We know so many things are at stake. We know how closer our country is to the precipice, but we must understand that Nigeria is ours and we cannot have a better place that could accommodate millions of our refugees if the only country we have implodes. We need to look inwards, make amends to the way we handle extremism and work to address our national maladies. Otherwise, we would one day wake upto face the consequences of our negligence with people as battle-hardened as the ones we see in Afghanistan and Somalia. Nigeria will be better off with a secular system.