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Interestingly, that was the second time in as many days that same colleague of mine was passing on to me a piece of positive comment on Nigeria. Earlier in the week, he had sent over an America Magazine's review of Nigerian Chris Abani's new novel, "GraceLand." He had encircled the caption of the review - "Oke's Odyssey" with a red marker and appended the words: "David, I think you may enjoy this book review." As he thought, I did enjoy the review. One John C. Hawley had begun his review of Chris Abani's "GraceLand" with a glowing encomium on the Nigerian literary community: "if Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka are arguably the grandfathers of Nigerian literature, and Ben Okri and Buchi Emecheta are their successors, Chris Abani, Chimamanda Adichie and Helen Habila would appear to be coming into their own these days as the next wave" (cf. John C. Hawley, "Oke's Odyssey" in America [August 2-9, 2004]: 25-7). I could not contain myself reading a foreign reviewer of a Nigerian author describe Nigerian literature as coming in waves. This seems as good as a good image publicity of a nation could ever get.

As far as I am concerned, these snippets and vignettes of positive remarks about Nigeria from foreigners like my neighbor and the reviewer of Abani's GraceLand, do constitute real victories for the new craze to burnish our nation's image, or as they say, "re-brand" Nigeria abroad. Also, they do suggest that the real heroes of our nation's improving image; those who are working their tails off to procure some modicum of respect for Nigeria in the outside world, are completely different from the big wigs at home who are just making noises about it and demanding fabulous capital votes to embark on what they regard as worldwide image-laundering projects. And this is perhaps why Nigeria's image problem has remained a conundrum, and might remain so for a long time to come. Those who claim to work for the improvement of our nation's image abroad tend to end up becoming the ones whose actions contribute to a further denigration of Nigeria's image all over the world.

However, one thing that struck me on reading the article in the CONTEXT newsletter, as well as others like it in many other recent publications, was how the rest of the world appeared to have been completely taken in by a questionable BBC study that claimed that Nigeria was the most religious nation on the planet. It would be recalled that in late February or early March this year the British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC, published a study it had conducted on the pattern and depth of religious beliefs in about ten leading countries of the world. Interviewing about ten thousand individuals from each of these countries, Nigeria came out on top with 90% of her citizens declaring a belief in God and an equally high percentage affirming their readiness to die for their faith.

Since the publication of that study some five months ago, it has been quoted in hundreds of thousands of academic journals, papers and news essays throughout the world. Such popular religious websites like Belief.net and Catholic.com went to town with the study at its publication. And as a consequence, Nigeria has been receiving some kind of image-boost from the claim of this study as well as an earlier one, also from Britain, which described Nigerians as the happiest people on the planet. So, in this year alone, Nigeria has had two "positive" "scientific studies" that boosted her image far more than any image industry could ever accomplish in one year. Does this suggest the way forward to improving our nation's image abroad? I do not think so. But one thing seems certain though. A considerable progress in the image of our nation could be achieved in far less cost than is being proposed by the propaganda machinery of the present administration in Nigeria.

However, while such studies might for a long time to come remain useful as a public relations tool in the hands of the image laundering industry of the Nigerian government, they also call for a sober reflection on the part of Nigerian scholars and journalists. There is no way any sensible Nigerian intellectual could escape asking and answering the question whether the claim of these studies can be borne out by facts on the ground. In other words, is Nigeria as truly religious as the BBC study and the rest of the world are claiming? Is the current religious phenomenon in Nigeria a good indicator of a deep religious conviction and commitment among the Nigerian citizenry? Or, has religion become the new theater for the tribe of Nigerian conmen to showcase their unmatchable skills and ingenuity?

Especially, in light of tragic developments that keep pouring forth from Nigeria on a daily basis in the name of religion, can any sincere Nigerian accept uncritically the conclusion that Nigerians are the most religious people on the planet? It seems that there is a terrible disconnect between the flamboyant phenomenon of religion in present-day Nigeria and the reality of truly religious Nigerians. Nigeria has become an enigmatic reality where it can no longer be taken for granted that a booming religious phenomenon or a mass confession of religiosity can guarantee an abundance of truly religious people. To the regret and dismay of many discerning Nigerians, religious flamboyance in present-day Nigeria has gradually become meshed with the endemic culture of fraud and corruption that continues to ravage the entire nation.

Okija Shrine arrests

For those who may not know, Okija is a community like many others in Igbo land that claim to have nearly 95% or even more of their populations affiliated to the major Christian denominations in the Southeast, namely, Catholicism, Anglicanism, etc. But many Okija indigenes consider themselves Catholics. In fact the community is so Catholic that the famous "healer" and "Satan-slaying" Fr. Emmanuel Edeh, CSSp., considered her worthy to host his prestigious private university dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, Madonna University. This high density of adherents of the Christian religion as well as the strong presence of the Catholic Church notwithstanding, the Okija community has proven today to incubate dangerous pagan rituals and shrines that regularly commit unbelievably heinous crimes against all principles of every conceivable contemporary religion and philosophy. Right there under the noses of influential religious personalities, communities, organizations and institutions, the Arusi Ogwugwu shrines of Okija are carrying out human sacrifices in a manner that has hardly been seen in Africa in the last several hundreds of years.

The heart-breaking aspect of the Okija discoveries is the fact that it is a tragic massacre and waste of precious human lives, which would otherwise be associated with Africa of the 3rd - 5th millennium BC. Unfortunately the Okija tragedy is taking place right now among Africans of the 21st century A.D. It is happening among the Igbo people of Africa who claim to be among the most evolved peoples of Africa. Ritual murder of innocent human beings is occurring right there in the epicenter of the Igbo nation that is posing as having been thoroughly evangelized by Christianity after nearly 150 years of efforts. What a shame that after all the gigantic churches of Igbo land, despite their massive church attendance every Sunday, many among the Igbo people are still harboring such heinous pagan practices whose contemplation alone tends to make everybody's blood boil.

The ritual massacre in the shrines of Okija is perhaps one of the greatest setbacks to missionary Christianity in the continent of Africa since the Rwandan genocide. That, after many centuries of Christianity in Africa - a religion whose ethics and theology center on the absolute sacredness and inviolability of every human life, many Igbo (both converts and those born into the faith) still indulge in an ancient and completely overtaken practices of ritual killings of innocent people, is indeed a major tragedy for Christianity in Africa. It seems to discredit Christianity in Igbo land indicating that it is perhaps mere whitewash. The findings in the Okija shrines tend to suggest that when one successfully peels off the painted layer of the Igbo skin, what one might see is a thriving region of heartless paganism abuzz with ritual murders and diabolic activities.

No matter how this situation is viewed, it is a tragic embarrassment to the Igbo people as a whole and a complete sabotage of their claim of a successful Christian evangelization. The Okija community and all other communities like it in Igbo land, and in Nigeria as a whole, are a major embarrassment to the continent of Africa. In fact, the continuing discoveries of mass ritual murders in Anambra State are a major discredit to all that Christianity has achieved in Igbo land and Nigeria in general. This situation touches on every Igbo person, and in fact, on every Nigerian that claims to be religious in anyway, especially in this era in which our nation is being falsely described as the most religious country in the world. Is this the stuff Nigerian religion is made of? If so, Nigeria is in fact not the most religious country but rather the most pagan nation on the planet. Do truly religious people in Nigeria mix their belief in God with ritual murders of innocent people? This situation makes nonsense of the BBC's so-called "scientific study." In our view, the Okija findings must serve as an impetus and a motivation for the Nigerian police to invade and scour all the nooks and crannies of the so-called shrines of the different communities in Igbo land in order to satisfy themselves and the world too that heinous crimes are not being committed inside their over-grown bushes.

Most important, the Okija discoveries are a shocking embarrassment to some of us who have written profusely and even lavished praises on the accomplishments of Christianity among the Igbo people of Nigeria. Shall we now eat our words, hide our faces and tell the world that the Igbo are no longer the totally evangelized people we thought they were? What shall we do and where shall we go to get back our credibility as scholars who speak candidly about the religious realities of our people? For all chroniclers of the activities of organized religion in the southeastern part of Nigeria, the revelation at Okija is a serious indictment. It is either that we, the writers in this area of research, have been covering up crimes, or that we are shallow in our studies of the activities of organized religion in Nigeria. No matter how one may look at it, the fact that these ancient shrines and rituals are still carrying on today with little or no scholarly efforts unveiling their despicable activities, seems to be a horrendous besmirch on the quality of religious scholarship in Nigeria.

Who knows the number of innocent people that have lost their lives in the shrines of Okija and their counterparts throughout Igbo land in the last one hundred years? Who would care to know if not deep-peering scholars? Perhaps one of the revelations of the Okija tragedy is that we may not have these types of diehard scholars in Igbo land yet. Assuming that we had a few of such people, it would be possible to calculate how long a violently murdered human being takes to decompose completely under normal temperature in a bush-like situation. With such information one could provide an average estimate in time of how many people these shrines might have sacrificed or could sacrifice within a specified period of time using the numbers that were discovered during the recent police raids as base figures. Such a procedure could determine the average number of souls these shrines destroy in a year. And from there one could extend the calculation to, say, a period of fifty or one hundred years. Should Igbo religious scholars venture to carry out such a project, it might be established that the Okija shrines and their counterparts all across Igbo land might have murdered hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of innocent people in the last one hundred years. The possibility of such being the case seems to be the reason why the discoveries at Okija are an unspeakable tragedy to Nigerians and Igbo people in particular. It could be that for the past several decades many us, Igbo people, have been wining and dining with mass murderers and satanic worshipers. Perhaps in our places of worship we have been taking collections and donations from ritual murderers of Igbo land. The possibility of such being the case is absolutely chilling to contemplate.

The Okija disaster is equally a humiliating embarrassment to the religious groups, denominations and communities - be they Catholic, protestant or even Islam, which call that community their home. How could these groups and communities not have known that there were tragic ritual murders going on in their villages and towns? In clustered villages and towns as we have them in Igbo land, how could they not have known? How can they convince anyone today that their silence over the tragedy was out of ignorance? Of course it was not. Most of them, no matter their religious affiliations, were at best passive accomplices of the crimes of the shrines. But if they were accomplices in such heinous crimes, or served as accessories to them, what is the quality of their religious belief? Should people who serve as accomplices in such heinous crimes, or people who condone them, be counted as real believers in God? Of course not! And if such people were counted in the BBC study among the 90% of Nigerians who claimed to believe in God, what does that say of the quality of the BBC study? Namely, that it was flawed through and through as far as Nigeria was concerned; that among the 90% who put Nigeria above every other nation on the planet, were diehard fraudsters, ritual murderers and their accomplices who might have been pretending before the BBC researchers to have authentic belief in God. Unfortunately that became a lie that made its way right into the study by which Nigeria was said to have defeated the rest of the world in religious belief.

Also, the tragic discoveries of last week impose serious indictments on the priests, pastors, teachers, bishops, patriarchs, imams, etc., who had at any point in time in the past several years played any pastoral or ministerial roles in the terribly embarrassed community of Okija. How could those pastors not have known what was going on in the shrines of their community for decades and even for centuries? Should they today make a plea of ignorance, it would never make any sense whatsoever. Theirs can only be criminal ignorance. But whether they know it or not, all those religious leaders that have had anything to do with Okija community must realize that they have rotten eggs on their faces this day. They must consider themselves as embarrassed as the community of Okija that has today become a poster boy for the horrendous blemish on the face of the Christianity of the Igbo people. That these purportedly "holy shepherds" of their flocks could not discover and fight to root out, or at least, uncover the unbelievable tragedies of the Okija shrines which might have been festering for decades and centuries is a shocking embarrassment to organized religion in Igbo land and Nigeria as a whole.

But I wonder if it has occurred to many Nigerians that many of the individuals associated with these shrines bore what would ordinarily pass as Christian names. You have names such as Anthony, Bartholomew, Sunday, Cornelius, etc., in the mix, all serving as functionaries in the unabashedly pagan shrines. Common Igbo folks would not acquire such names unless they had attended Christian worships at some particular times in their lives and perhaps undertaken some initiatory rites to regularize their memberships in Christian religion. Suppose this was true of the main characters of the Okija shrines, what would it say to the readers of the ritual murder stories from across the world?

In my view, foreign readers of news stories on this tragic discovery at Okija might instinctively assume that many Igbo Christians who present themselves as bona fide believers in God usually practice ritual murders in their pagan shrines after having attended Christian worships on Sundays. In other words, Nigerian Christians do play it both ways. What this ultimately means is that Nigerian religious claims are afflicted by fraud and hypocrisy. Isn't it a tragedy beyond comprehension that ritual sacrifices of innocent people are being carried out by people that seem to bear the names of Christian saints? In other words, people who claim to have received Christian baptism are participating in the gruesome murders of their fellow brothers and sisters in the Lord and offering their bodies to pagan deities. What does this say about the BBC study's claim that Nigerians are the most religious people on the planet? Of course, this necessarily renders null and void any claim that Nigerians are the most religious in the world. I think it would be far truer to say that Nigerians are perhaps the most hypocritically religious people on the planet.

But it is not only in Igbo land that the culture of religious hypocrisy has become entrenched in Nigeria. Take a swing across the rest of Nigeria. Begin, say, with the Southwest. What is the greatest industry in the Southwest today? Is it not religious ministries, revivals and camps run by dubious super-pastors who are shamelessly propagating an obviously false and criminal enterprise called "theology of wealth?" (You can bet that this will necessarily form a prominent chapter in the next volume of my African Christianity Rises study series). Of course, there is nothing authentic about any theology predicated on using hooks and crooks to amass wealth. There is no Christianity or authentic religion entailed in gathering and deceiving the masses of Nigeria with fraudulent promises of miracles. But this is what seems to be reigning in Nigeria today, especially, in the southwest. This part of Nigeria has become home to most religiously hypocritical organizations in the history of the Nigerian nation.

The biggest and most lucrative industries in the southwestern part of Nigeria are those claiming to be performing prodigious miracles and paving the way for people to become rich overnight. Nigeria, especially, Lagos, is abuzz with religious ministries and larger-than-life ministers tying up traffic on the streets, dominating the airwaves and attracting apocalyptic-size crowds that are being promised that if they joined they would be liberated from all their bodily ailments as well as transformed into millionaires through the sheer power of loquacious "prayers." But what can be more fraudulent than such claims? Should people who make such fabricated claims be considered authentically religious? I do not think so. And should a study, which counts these people among the 90% of Nigerians who believe in God, be considered credible? Of course not! Majority of these people sponsoring or attending these new-age religious organizations are in deed people who are committing fraud with the name of God. Unfortunately their number in Nigeria keeps growing on a daily basis. And whenever any studies are done to determine the nature of the religious faith-commitment of the average Nigerian, these groups of individuals stand at the forefront, mouthing their belief in God and peddling false information about the true nature of our people's religious belief.

Let us make a dash into the region that is traditionally described as Northern Nigeria. What is there on the religious terrain of the Nigerian nation today? What does one see and hear about religion in the North these days other than the Shariah law, religious fanaticism, inter-religious and inter-ethnic warfare, killings, arson, and all what not, all in the name of religion? How many innocent people have been murdered in the North in the last five years because of religious clashes engendered by those who claim to believe in God? It must be in excess of fifteen thousand precious lives that have been destroyed by those who claim that they believe in God in Northern Nigeria. Northern religious fanatics may not be murdering innocent Nigerians in the secretive environment of pagan shrines like their Okija counterparts, but they are equally committing heinous crimes of wanton murder through gratuitous religious crises. And by so doing they tend to vitiate the very basis of their religious belief.

Should these kinds of people be counted among those who are truly religious in Nigeria? Of course not! All fanatics and religious terrorists should be included in the category they truly belong, namely, as mental patients. People who kill, maim and terrorize societies to demonstrate their belief in God should never be included in any study of the religious character of a people. This is because they are so incapacitated by their psychotic conditions that they are incapable of making informed decisions about faith. The condition of the people of this category seems far worse than hypocrisy and fraud that tend to dominate the other parts of Nigeria. Northern religious fanatics are usually in dire need of psychiatric attention. Were it possible to segregate these groups of sick Nigerians from the rest of our compatriots professing true a belief in God, it would be seen that there is no way our nation could qualify as the most religious country on the planet. The truth is, from east to west, north and south, Nigerian religious behavior seems impaired by horrendous maladies. The flaw in the BBC study was that it could not separate the sheep from the wolf. It could not segregate Nigerians of healthy and true religious faith from their sick counterparts. Instead it lumped everybody together and the numerous Nigerians clearly sick in their religious confession boosted our nation's chances to secure an undeserved victory over the rest of the world in matters of religious faith.

However, one thing that was made abundantly clear by the discoveries in Okija this past week was that every religion in Nigeria seems to be undergoing a major internal crisis these days. Nigerian religions are in a state of a major crisis of confidence. For Islam, it is the rise of violent fanaticism, which is tearing communities apart, leading to heinous massacres of innocent people, and in the process, denigrating and undermining the religious belief of an average Muslim. Because of the role of a few Islamic fanatics today, an average Muslim in Nigeria can easily be taken as a potential terrorist and a violent fanatic. However, for Christians, the situation does not seem any better. The collapse of the world of criminals, fraudsters and corrupt politicians into that of the remnant of our pagan past is bearing tragic fruits in ritual murders and other unspeakable crimes these days. All these undoubtedly denigrate and undermine the religious claim of an average Christian in Nigeria.

The Okija discoveries seem to indicate that Nigeria has entered a new chapter in her never-ending fight to exorcise the demons that have ever held her captive. The burgeoning alliance between the world of criminals and that of keepers of pagan shrines promises to present an uncompromising challenge to organized religion in Nigeria. The fact that criminals and corrupt politicians may be converging in pagan shrines to seek more power through the massacre of innocent people is indeed an earthshaking development both in the Nigerian society in general and in the religious experience of our nation. How this new monster is going to be combated and perhaps defeated, I do not think there is yet any Nigerian with any clear ideas. But until many Nigerians recover fully from the shock of what was revealed at the Okija this past week, may our valiant police officers keep raiding shines and outing the kingpins of Nigeria's criminal underworld. Perhaps revealing the identities and shaming the clientele of these shrines would eventually put their ministers out of business.