hy so many Nigerians, up to 200, killed in a two-day riot in Kano when only a handful of people died in Afghanistan, where United States is (October 2001) launching air strikes, and Afghanistans are not killing one another during demonstrations against US air strike? Is Nigeria a splotch nation, or an Afghanistan satellite? Nigerians killing Nigerians in the name of religion, dog eat dog, is a shameful act. Is it deep down hatred among ourselves or against another satellite country like America to Nigeria? Why do we have to kill ourselves in the name of religion?

Religion teaches harmony among different sects in the society. Who is virtuous among the people that claim to be strong adherents of their religion? No religion teaches hatred. When the Koran teaches Jihad against the unbelievers and the Christians teachings instructs its adherents to take up their cross/sword and wage crusade against non-believers, neither religion says kill the unbelievers. What it says is for you to take up your Koran or Bible and use that as swords to convert people to your faith. If you start killing people of different religion how would you entice them to your religion? There were peaceful demonstrations all over the world, even in Afghanistan, against United States launching air strike on Afghanistan. They did not kill one another. When would Nigeria graduate from this barbaric act of violence, killing their fellow Nigerians, and their fellow human beings like slaughtering a cow? What brought about the strained relationship between Rimi and Obasanjo after the former followed Obasanjo all over the world, when he won the Presidential election in 1999?

I have always believe that the ethno-religious conflicts in Nigeria were precipitated by some religious as well as political leaders, sects and groups to further their religious and political ambitions. It is my opinion that Nigeria should outgrow the use of ethnicity and religion in its political process.

The problem with Nigerian leadership rests with the followership. People's mentality determines the type of leaders they want. Unfortunately, Nigerians have not learned to accept that leaders are to serve and not to be turned into demi -gods. In the midst of the very poor economic situation in Nigeria, the various religious disturbances in the North which claimed hundreds and thousands of lives and millions of Naira worth of properties, the open display of corruption, promotion discrimination based on religion and ethnicity, it is very sad to hear Nigerians singing praises of their corrupt and worthless leaders. The obvious is that Nigerians tend to praise any Government in power. As soon as the Government steps down, criticism follows.

If one looks at the African continent, one can say that Nigeria has one of the greatest pools of qualified human resources, which is the best expertise to draw upon. Most people often wonder at Nigerians because, despite all of the country's resources, they still seem to make a mess of things. Nigerians have not recognized as a people and accepted that their leaders are supposed to serve them. They should develop politics with maturity. You do not take the extreme measure of killing a newborn child just because the midwife is a bad woman. When it comes to the national question, Nigerians do not come together as one unit to fight the ills of the society. They always allow ethnicity and, religion to determine what they should do.

Cynicism is an endemic social disease in Nigeria. It permeates the entire sociopolitical fabric. If one scratches an average Nigerian, the watery blood of cynicism pours forth. One will also find beneath the surface the slightly burned flesh of negativism. Nigerians are very cynical and negative about their country. Nonetheless, it is a country of abundant and innovative human resources. Provided Nigerians apply their abundant intelligence in a positive direction, perhaps Japan and America would have to turn to Nigeria to learn. A good and high sense of patriotism should be flowing in the veins of Nigerians.

Nigeria today is a pluralistic society with different cultural and religious groups. The people do not live in a religiously monolithic society. That is, the Nigerian environment cannot, without series consequences, be regarded as purely Traditional, Islamic, or Christian. This situation is nonexistent anywhere else in the world today (2001), despite efforts by a few leaders to create a state with only one religion, not even in Afghanistan.

Nigerians rightly live as peoples with different cultural backgrounds and diverse religions, traditions, and practices, coupled with a multiplicity of patterns of behavior and lifestyles, which are often diametrically opposed to each other. Nonetheless, the way Nigerians preach, teach, and practice their religions; their adherents' inability to accommodate other religious views; their false devotion to religious founders and their seemingly zealous but in fact fanatically uncompromising practices, contrary to the fundamental claims of their religious and the religious founders-all of this has resulted in religious disturbances in the northern part of Nigeria. Therefore, believers of all faiths should be concerned and rise up as one to jointly seek a solution to the intra- and inter-religious conflicts.

The utterances of some religious leaders both Christians and Moslems alike were enough to incite violence. They believe that the nation could only survive within the framework of a particular religion.

Should people defend their faith by inciting violence (Jihad)? We should let the soul of Mallam Aminu Kano rest in peace. He would not forgive any one in Kano using religion as a weapon for his political ambitions.

Every religion worth its name prohibits killing, stealing, lying, oppression, etc. Each religion-whether Traditional, Christian, Islamic, or any other religion such as Hinduism, Buddhism, or Godianism-teaches morality, honesty, sincerity, trustworthiness, accountability, sympathy for each other, and good neighborliness. Nevertheless, one more often than not finds the exponents of a religion doing things contrary to their own precepts. Religious leaders should practice what they preach, so that others will emulate them. No religion should claim superiority over the other.

Bertrand Russell asserts that, since all religions disagree, none of them could be true. However, I think that all religions teach the same thing in the area of morals. Arnold Toynbee agrees that: "There is no one alive today who knows enough to say with confidence whether one religion has been greater than all others."

Smith had the following opinion:

"Religion alike confronts the individual with the most momentous option this world can present. It calls the soul to the highest adventure it can undertake, a proposed journey across the jungle, fears, and deserts of the human spirits. The call is to master reality, to master the self."

Toynbee once asked: "Who are . . . the greatest benefactors of the living generation of mankind?" In answer to the question, Smith says that they are: "Confucius and Laotze, the Buddha, the prophets of Israel and Judah, Zoroaster, Jesus, Mohammed and Socrates." In Nigeria's case, if the Christians and Moslems have been preaching and practicing the ways of life of Mohammed and Jesus, there could not have been the religious disturbances and political oppression witnessed in the 1980s and 1990s, and the most recent (October 2001) in Jos and Kano.

No religion has the monopoly of the knowledge of God. It could be the means of soothing the relationship between Christianity and Islam, but more important is the common belief among Africans is the concept of God, which might differ from culture to culture. Parrinder observes that: "Africans were religious people." The proliferation of Afro-Christian churches in Nigeria is a living testimony to the need to make Islam and Christianity adaptable to African ways of life and religion. For example, Christian churches are adopting the celebrations, music, and festivals of African culture. Nowadays, members of other religions participate Moslem, Christian, and Traditional celebrations in.

All religions-Islam, Christianity, and African Traditional-need to interact theologically and socially, and have dialogues at all levels. Adherents of each religion should see non-members as brothers, sisters, and children of the same God. In the Yorubaland, there are almost as many Christians as there are Moslems; when compared to the North, much more harmony exists between the two groups. This level of tolerance should be a barometer for the religious practices throughout Nigeria, but especially in the northern States. I assert that the legendary personality of Oduduwa was and has remained a political and religious symbol among the Yorubas.

Quite a number of Nigerians have advocated for pure secularism, as echoed during the 1977/78 Constituent Assembly Debate, which I analyzed and published on this site recently. These groups of Nigerians have maintained that religion should be kept out of politics, and that the Government should in no way take part in any religious matters-especially pilgrimages to Mecca and Jerusalem. The pilgrimages were considered personal. Some other groups, especially the Moslems, maintained that there should be no separation between politics and religion-that is, Islam. They argued that Islam is the Moslems' way of life.

Religious dichotomy is inherently destructive of national goals. When politicized, national political life has hardly any chance of success. To preserve the Nigerian nation on its course of national development, and to defuse the destructive potential of religious dichotomy, the various Nigerian Governments will have to opt in favor of State secularity. State secularity does not mean State antagonism to religious. The different religions have to cooperate in matters of public interest, but the State is not expected to favor a particular faith or pursue policies, which are discriminative of sections of a nation on religious grounds.

Section 11, Part II of Chapter 1 of the 1989 Nigerian Constitution clearly states that: "The Government of the Federation or of a State shall not adopt any religion as State Religion." It would need anything but political tact and wisdom to sweep such provisions underfoot, flagrantly tilt Government interest in favor of one religion, and subject the existing fragile North-South or Moslem-Christian balance, to risk the very thing the Constitution intended to avert. I allude to the fact that the Nigerian Government should adhere to the Constitutional provisions on religion and the Government. It is neither realistic nor practicable to expect Nigeria to have a State religion as advocated by some Moslems. Therefore, any attempt to create a Moslem or Christian State in Nigeria would result in nothing else than chaos, bloodshed, and war, such that would make the Irish, Sudanese, and Bosnia experiences child's play. Adherents of various systems should come together in a healthy relationship.

I contend that the Government should distance itself from all religious activities or organization, and that religion should not be a barometer in determining Government positions or promotions. I agree with the recommendation of the April 1986 Conference on Foreign Policy at Kuru (Jos) that: "Since Nigeria's involvement in pilgrimage is more religious than pragmatic, the Nigerian Government should sever any involvement in pilgrimage by the year 2000 AD." The Government should not be a partisan on religious issues. It should play the role of overseer to ensure fairness, justice, and check subversive tendencies under the cover of religion. It should ban religion in any political arrangement, and desist forthwith from all patronage, covert or overt, of religious bodies.

With the level of education still (2001) very low in Nigeria, the Government needs to step up an enlightenment crusade for Nigerians. Illiteracy is one of the factors for the ceaseless religious riots in Nigeria. The Government needs to invigorate the educational policies in Nigeria and remove from them any religious and ethnic influences. Nigeria needs a very sound, functional, and complete education, and the education of the human mind. It should acquire a functional philosophy of education that will embrace the character of teachers, a philosophy of education, which emphasizes morals to stop theft from the public treasury, to make people love hard work, and provide jobs for the unemployed, such as in agriculture. A very sound education might eliminate the use of the quota system, while merit would still be practiced. At all levels of education in Nigeria, students and teachers should constantly reflect on the value of religious tolerance in a mixed community of beliefs and practices.

I am of the opinion that the three religions-African Traditional, Christianity, and Islamic-should be taught in the Nigerian schools, both private and public, from elementary levels to the university, for proper understanding of the religious ethics. The multi-religious nature of those who attend and teach in the educational institutions provides a unique untapped channel for good dialogue among various religious organizations. However, there should be an improvement in the content and quality of teaching. Inter-religious conferences and seminars should be encouraged and organized by various schools to bring together peoples of various faith for the purpose of interaction, exchange of ideas, and development of useful suggestions for local and national improvement.

In view of the ethnic complexity of Nigerian society, we should teach the three major languages of Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba in all Nigerian schools. They should also be made compulsory. This would give an opportunity for every Nigerian to be literate in the three principal Nigerian languages. It would eliminate the sense of insecurity of, say, an Igbo man who finds himself in the midst of Hausa-speaking people, because he could easily join in the conversation. The arrangement would enable every Nigerian to communicate with one or two common languages in addition to his own. If an indigenous national language were adopted, whose language is chosen would become the loser, since those people speaking that language would be unable to communicate in any other language. The idea of WAZOBIA as a combination of the three major languages would be ideal for Nigeria's complex society.

The Government should tap other avenues of creating a mutually peaceful atmosphere. At the "local" level, individual Nigerians are already doing this in sharing the values, practices, and beliefs of others, in the different spheres of life, and which is more pronounced in the religious circle and public life. Mutual sharing involving the adherents of the three principal religions occurs in a wide variety of areas, such as in the adherents' outlook, the use of phrases from one another's sacred scriptures, visiting one another's holy persons and healers for healing and solutions to diverse problems, and enjoying one another's songs, music, and religious programs on radio and television. I feel that these exchanges are healthy and will augur well for the future inter-religious dialogues.

However, it is abundantly clear that ethno-religious politics do not augur well for Nigeria. They have led to numerous problems, most especially from 1980s till today (2001) which would take a very strong leadership to rectify. The cultural, linguistic, religious, and economic differences should be used as unifying forces for the country, so as not to split it asunder.

The implementation of a well-planned policy and the change of attitude of Nigerians to think as citizens before thinking as a religious or ethnic group will make Nigeria a great country. Its future lies not only with the leaders but also with the citizens. There is a need for the followership's political reawakening and a need to peacefully demand accountability from the leaders.

Nigeria needs a leader who is purposeful, achievement-motivated, and intellectually and morally sound; a leader who, in the context of a multilingual nation like Nigeria, is able to put the nation above sectional interests. He must be a man of vision, God-fearing, who must be accepted across religious and regional lines, selfless, unbiased, and with a great sense of direction. Although leaders are bound to be manipulated by their groups, if someone aspires to lead a nation such as this, he must realize that he is not there as an ethnic or religious leader. He is there as a leader of a country and a person who can win the confidence of all and sundry. Obasanjo should not think much of likes Rimi's statement, put God first in whatever you do for Nigeria.

I still believe that Nigeria is worth fighting for. All Nigerians should join hands to prevent ethnic and religious bigotry from destroying the country as a whole. Can Nigerians start doing something for the benefit of the future generations?