Religion in Nigeria: Christianity, Islam and Traditionalist -By Ojeabulu Priscilla Ebaide

According to the Pew Research Center, Nigeria has the largest Christian population of any country in Africa, with more than 80 million persons in Nigeria belonging to the church with various denominations.

There are many different thesis in the discussion of whether Muslims, Christians and traditionalists, worship the same God. But still, it does not change the fact that there are many similarities that bring these religions together.
Nigeria is known to be a multi-religious country and this have led to national insecurity in the country. Religion that is supposed to be a platform for love, unity and peace but had been used by many to ruin the good state of the society or person.
This three religions do believe in God, they just have different names they call Him. Christians call him “God”, Muslims employs “Allah”, while the traditionalists call him in their dialects.

Muslims and Christians, always pointing out opinions that if we commit sin or worship another god we’re likely to go to hell but even forgetting the fact that the traditional worshipers have more better chances of going to heaven if there’s one, and that is because during their time they had no idea of Jehovah or Allah.

These religions have their different mode of revelation. The traditionalist seek revelation through the priest, the Christians, through prophets and Jesus (as God himself) while the muslims seek through Muhammad.

This has led to the misconception about the Christians belief. The Muslims believes that Jesus Christ is a prophet(messenger of Allah) and not God himself. The Muslims also believe that the message of the prophet has been corrupted because of the idea of the “Holy Trinity”.

On one hand, in the national presidential race, we’ve had Christian leaders and also Muslim leaders, on the other hand we’ve never had a traditionalist that ruled, Why?
The Christians and Muslims have possessions of their holy books while it’s a problem when the traditionalist are in possession of their charms

A well-known religious war in the past was the crusades and the inquisitions where Christians waged war against other religions. About one to three million people were killed in the crusades and about 3000 people were killed in the inquisitions. Religious violence and wars can bring people apart because it is usually people from one religion fighting against another religion.

The idea of religion has brought about division in the society, In a time of deep social and political division, religion has to have the potential to bring opportunities for unity and interaction. This seems no longer possible.

Ojeabulu Priscilla Ebaide.
ojeabulupriscilla@gmail.com