violence eradication in nigeria: tools and measures – a case for religious freedom by: rev. fr....

VIOLENCE ERADICATION IN NIGERIA: TOOLS AND MEASURES – A CASE FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

By: Rev. Fr. Magnus Tochukwu IfedikwaInstructor: Prof. dr. Marco Ventura

SYMBOL/FLAG OF NIGERIA

MAP OF NIGERIA

INTRODUCTION

• The human person through history has remained tenacious in the pursuit of comfort, joy and peace.• Human beings in the cause of time developed in communties and

later cities and countries.• The pursuit for the „self“ and „all“ began to breed trepidations to

peaceful and co-habitation far beyond the inevitable terrors of nature.

INTRODUCTION

• The horrors of history have left the human person conspicously at the mercy of community and self-seekers where selfishness and inhumanity to fellow thrive above all.• What becomes of the human society is a platform for vigorous,

uncompromising and foreseable but unavoidable conflict for and against one another.• There continues to be killings, hatred and discord, intolerance and

constant dramatisation of individual ignorance, insolence, and negligence in the human society.

INTRODUCTION

• Over the years, Nigeria has been a victim of this unfortunate factor of the human community and is still struggling to maintain peace among her component units.• Over the years, misadventure of the Boko Haram insurgents have left

Christianity in Nigeria in panic and sorrow.• Many lives have been wasted and the blood thirsty fellows seem not

to be satisfied.

WHAT IS VIOLENCE?

• Internal use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against ones‘s self, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, mal-development or deprivation.

(World Health Organisation – http://www.int/topics/violence/en)

WHAT IS VIOLENCE?

• Violence can also be said to be use of physical force to injure people of property.• Violence may cause physical pain to those who experience it directly,

as well as emotional distress to those who either expereince or witness it.• Individauls, families, schools, workplaces, communities, society, and

the environment are all harmed by violence.(http://www.humanillness.com/Behavioral -Health-Sel-Vi/Violence)

WHAT IS VIOLENCE?

• Violence induces a form of disorder in the society in whatever way it may occur.• Violence in its being precipates undesired und undesirable effects that

impede the smooth flow of community and individual activities.• Violence may have last longing consequences for victims in any

human society. (Vitus Nwosu, Violence: one of the banes of a drowning Nation: Violence in the Nigerian society vis-a-vis the Gospel of peace and tolerance. The Rising Sun magazine, vol. 1 No 12. p. 47)

WHAT IS VIOLENCE

• Post-colonial Africa has experienced a spate of conflicts and violence, namely Intra and interstate, ethnic, religious, political and resource control based violence that is expressed in such conditions as poverty, inequality, psychological violence, oppression and social exclusion, have ravaged one African country after another.• Violence has many causes including frustration, exposure to violent

media, violence in the home or neighbourhood and a tendencey to see other people‘s actions as hostile even when they are not. • Conflict, crime and violence is seen as aberrant to societal

consciousness.

WHAT IS VIOLENCE

• Violence is a criminal act and combination of a motive not itself and operation not in absence but a combination of these that causes harm to certain objects and prohibited by law.

(Ayuk, Owan, Elok and Odinka, Multi-dimensional violence in Nigeria: Causes and methods of curbing the trend, Journal of Emerging Trends in Educational Research and policy Studies, p. 616)

NATURE AND CAUSES OF VIOLENCE IN NIGERIA

• Nigeria has over the years been faced with sectorial, tribal, political and resource control induced tensions and violence.• Causes of violence in Nigeria have been as a result of the inter-tribal

biases among her numbers sometimes religiously incited.• The main causes of violence in Nigeria are crime, accidents, political

violence, religious and ethnic fighting and oil and land clashes. (Nigerian watch 2006-2014)


• There is no doubt that almost all religious violence in Nigeria before and after Independence has taken place in the nothern part of the country. • The rate of religious intolerance in this part of the country

metamorphosed into the deadly sect Boko Haram which has diligently reduced the life in this part of the country to „hide and seek“. The adverse effects of the terrorist attacks carried out by this group cannot be overemphasised. • Inter-tribal biases may be held responsible for the thirty month war of

which effects Nigeria still suffers today.


• Political violence as a result of incidences arising from flawed elections, evidence of voting fraud, rigged election, political intimidation, manipulation, bribery and corruption just to maintain or wrench power, has heightened the level of violence with the youth being used as thugs and opposition army. This in no small measure has contributed to the apparently incurable violence in Nigeria.• One major cause of religious violence is the absence of the political

will to prosecute and punish offenders or perpertrators. (Ayuk, Owan, Elok and Odinka, Multi-dimensional violence in Nigeria: Causes and methods of curbing the trend, Journal of Emerging Trends in Educational Research and policy Studies, p. 619)

EFFECTS OF VIOLENCE IN NIGERIA

• The effects of violence in Nigeria may be named under the following headings:• - Loss of lives and Properties• - Economic retardation• - Social disruption• - Diminished quality of life• - Psychological trauma• - International disregard


• The nefarious effects of violence in Nigeria especially on the area of religious violence taking the Boko Haram sect into account are conspicuous. Loss of lives and properites in north-eastern Nigeria is not to be compared with any. Day after day, houses are burnt, shops are destroyed and scores killed in bomb attacks and other violent means. This has a very disastrous effect on the Nigerian economy and quality of life.• The rate at which people quit their businesses in other to escape death

and the alarming rate of attacks on market places and other commercial institutions in Nigeria by the Boko Haram sect has a corrosive effect on the economic growth and development of our country.


• Foreign investors often and on due to fear of loss of their own lives stay away from Nigeria and thus pushing down all the more the value of the economy.• Kidnapping of foreign engineers in the Niger Delta areas by the

militants also brought the economy to a slow growth rate.• Violence in Nigeria has disrupted the social life of the citizens to a

great extent.• Social gatherings are now with maximum restrictions and minimum

occurence all because of the bid to avert violent attacks from known and unknown enemies.


• Violence in Nigeria has gone a long way in bringing down the rate of economic growth in Nigeria. • The constant bomb attacks witnessed in the North Eastern Nigeria has

gone a long way in preventing investors local and otherwise from settling in Nigeria.• The recent set back in the economy of the nation also flows from the

background of violence and violent related issues. • The constant loss of manpower to violence both electoral and ethnic

has degraded the level of human resources and thus causing retardation in the economy.


• The psychological trauma of violence is obvious. Many parents no longer wish that their children stay a meter away from them because they are not sure of the next action of the blood thirsty citizens who continually unleash mayhem on the people. The kidnapping of some school girls by the Boko haram insurgents in April 2014 in the north has left many Nigerians in a pitiable state of emotional imbalance especially the youths.• Violence has gone a long way in presenting Nigeria as an ungovernable

state to the outside world. Beginning from the crisis that ravaged the nation from independence till date, Nigeria has come on board with the tag of a terrorist state recognizable in the world. Abuse of human rights is on the increase because of these violent attack.

VIOLENCE IN NIGERIA AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

• Violent conflict is rarely productive. In the case of Nigeria, one of the several types of violent conflicts that constantly plague the socio-political history of the nation is the sort of conflict that is based on religious differences. Such religious conflicts are quite frequent and occur mostly between the Christian and Muslim population in the Nothern part of the country.• Religious violence in Nigeria is one that has a long historical itinerary

and motivation. Between 1987 and 2011, numerous religious conflicts, resulting in the death of tens of thousands of persons, destruction of Churches and Mosques and property worth millions of dollars, have been documented in Nigeria.


• Most recent of these conflicts are the post-elections conflicts and terrorist attacks which are religious in nature and at the same time political.• The current Constitution of Nigeria section 38 (1), established in 1999,

states that there will be no state religion, confirms freedom of religion, and prohibits discrimination on the basis of religious belief. However some religious fanatics in Nigeria have made this law unrealizable in their bid to impose sharia law and practices in Nigeria.• It is hard fact that religious associated crimes have become a common

feature of the Nigerian society in spite of the enormous human and financial resources committed to adminstrative panels of enquiry and investigation into remote causes of religious crimes.


• Many factors are responsible for religious violence in Nigeria.• 1. INTRA RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE: • - Ignorance or half knowledge of the true teaching of the very religion

that the people involved claimed to be defending. This brings about for example religious intolerance which has its bedrock the Islamic extremists of the north. Their gospel is that which expels all other beliefs other than Islam. • - Economic factor – despite the fact that the country is blessed with

both human and natural resources, there is still a clear difference between the haves and the have-nots.


• 2. INTER RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE:• - Lack of recognition for one another • - Campaings of hatred and blackmail – manifests in different forms

including: incitement, distortion of fact about each other, blocking each other‘s chances as demonstrated in the issues of Sharia and Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) in Nigeria.• - Lack of genuine desire to understand each other‘s belief and culture• - Extremism – based on poor knowledge of the teaching of the

religion being defended by the group involved.

WAYS FOWARD AND CONCLUSION

• The remedy for religious violence is one that requires a root healing strategy. Creation of programs at basic places of learning to instruct the growing populace of behavioral norms and attitudes.• Establishement of governmental agencies to forestall stability in the

maintenance and application of the constitution and education of the citizens to recognise their civil rights is needed.• Reduction of people‘s access to guns, knives and other dangerous

weapons especially in nothern Nigeria will go a long way in curtailing this evil. • Dialogue is also a highly required tool or means to confronting the

problem of religious violence.

WAYS FOWARD AND CONCLUSION

• The principle of non-violent resistance in the face of violent persecution of Christians in Nigeria cannot be overemphasised for this has been the guiding principle with which the Church has survided ages. Pro-actively, efforts should be made to separate state from religion. The secularity enshrined in the Nigerian constitution must be upheld. As long as the states in Nothern Nigeria refuse to recognise, respect and defend the equal rights of individuals of different faiths and beliefs, religious hatred and uprising will not abate.• National integration must be encouraged. We must learn to live with each

other, tolerate people no matter their ethnic or religious background. Tribal sentiments and ethnic chauvinism must be played down.

violence eradication in nigeria: tools and measures – a case for religious freedom by: rev. fr....

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