Leaving religion and living without
religion
SIR: Nigeria is often described as a deeply religious society where
most if not all persons profess religious beliefs without qualification.
Nigeria is often portrayed as a country where the religious demography is
static- everybody is religious, everybody belongs to one faith or the
other. Everybody professes religion, nobody renounces religion. Nobody is
critical or sceptical of religious dogmas. Non religious and freethinking
Nigerians are so insignificant. This is a misrepresentation of the
religious demography and dynamics in the country. The time has come for us
to rectify this misrepresentation.
No doubt, most Nigerians profess belief in God and identify themselves
with one of the three main faiths- Traditional religion, Christianity and
Islam. But there are many Nigerians who profess minority faiths and
spiritualities or some forms of religious syncretism embracing elements of
more than one religion.
Generally, in Nigeria there is a lot of social pressure on individuals
to be religious and to remain religious from cradle to the grave. Remove
this social and political pressure on Nigerians and the religious dynamics
will radically change.
A very important and largely ignored aspect of Nigeria’s religious
demography is the non believing folk. These are those who renounce their
‘family religion’. They see no existential value or meaning in the
religion which they were born into. They live their lives without
professing a belief in God, without belonging to any religion. They are
called humanists, atheists and freethinkers. They exist in Nigeria. They
live in Nigeria. But anyone who understands the intensive religious
upbringing and bombardment every Nigerian child goes through will
understand why most non religious people are in the closets.
So Nigerians are made to believe that professing religion is a must-
and not a matter of choice. Hence so many Nigerians who were born into one
religion or the other and who grow up to question, challenge or reject
religious myths and superstition cannot express their thoughts and
sentiments openly in the public. Many Nigerians are non believers in
private and believers in public. They leave religion and live without
religion but still remain in the closet.
Unlike religious folks, non believers do not want to be murdered or
‘martyred’ because the so called afterlife, which believers imagine they
will inherit in the hereafter, is an illusion. In our families and
communities, there is a heavy price on leaving religion and in living
without religion. Those who renounce their faith in God are hated,
persecuted and discriminated against. They are treated as enemies of the
society. They are ostracized. In some communities those who openly
denounced their faith can be murdered in cool blood otherwise the person
loses the support, sympathy and solidarity of the family and community
including the government. So because of the risks involved many Nigerians
who leave religion or live without religion do not want to openly admit
it.
Until believers abandon force, intimidation, violence and persecution
of those who leave religion or live without religion, religious statistics
will remain false and artificial.
Still there are Nigerians who have taken the bull by the horn. They
have, in spite of the risks involved, openly denounced or rejected the
faith of their fathers and confirmed their non religious identity. Names
that easily come to mind are Tai Solarin and Wole Soyinka. But they are
not the only Nigerians who have said farewell to religion. There are many
freethinking non religious individuals out there in our schools, colleges
and universities, in the rural and urban areas. They are living rational
faithless life are doctors and nurses, teachers and students, carpenters,
tailors, drivers and mechanics, wives and mothers, brothers and sisters,
husbands and fathers. They may not be as organized as our religious folks
but the fact is that they are, and are going about their lives in a
rational, ethical and lawful manner.
The time has come for use to acknowledge the non religious dynamics in
our society. The time has come for us to recognize that there are
Nigerians who have left religion and are living a happy and meaningful
life like other human beings.
• Leo Igwe
Ibadan.
An Attack on my Family
Leo Igwe
Around midnight of Wednesday August 4 2010,two gunmen invaded my family
house in Mbaise in Imo state in Southern Nigeria . They shot twice in the
air and my other fainted. They later descended on my aging father and
started beating him. They blindfolded him with a piece of cloth and hit
him several times with stones.
He later fainted and the hoodlums ransacked the whole house and made
away with whatever they found valuable. My father bled from the right eye,
nose and mouth. He had bruises on his head, hands, legs and chest. After
the attack, some neighbours came and rushed him to a nearby hospital. From
there, I moved him to an eye hospital in Lagos where the doctor confirmed
that he had extensive injuries in the right eye and recommended that it be
removed. Yesterday, August 11, 2010, he underwent a surgery and the right
eye was removed. He is currently recuperating at the hospital. I called
the police to inform them. And they said I should send a formal petition
.
This attack is the latest in the vicious campaign of harassment and
intimidation of me and my family members by state and non state actors for
our efforts to bring to justice a 50 year old man, Edward Uwa who raped a
10 year old girl Daberechi, in my community. Since 2007, Edward and his
associate, Ethelbert Ugwu have brought several police and court actions
against me, my family members and our witnesses including Daberechi’s
father. They have brought many fictitious allegations against us. In
January, they brought police officers and soldiers and arrested me and my
father for murder. In 2008 Ethelbert Ugwu brought some soldiers who who
arrested brutalized and detained my two brother at a local police in
Ahiazu.
Unfortunately, the authorities in Nigeria are not helping matters. They
have refused taking appropriate actions against Edward and Ethelbert. The
police and judicial systems are corrupt, inept and ineffective. Police
officers are only interested in making money from petitions, not in
fighting or preventing crimes. And the court system is slow and expensive.
So in Nigeria police and court actions are used by criminally minded
people to harass and intimidate others, and block access to justice
particularly for the poor and less privileged.
The local police stations in Ahiazu and Umuahia have refused arraigning
Edward and Ethelbert for misinforming the police. The police in Zone 9
have yet to publish the outcome of the investigation of the murder charge
brought by Ethelbert Ugwu and Edward Uwa for which they arrested me in
January. Right now the prosecution of Edward for indecent assault is
stalled because the Assistant Inspector General of Police in Umuahia,
Abubakar Ringim has refused releasing the case file to Imo state
prosecutor despite several applications to that respect. The state
prosecutor decided to take over the prosecution after Ethelbert Ugwu got a
fraudulent fiat through a local lawyer to take over the case. The police
prosecutor is no longer coming to the court and the local magistrate has
threatened to strike out the case in October. Ethelbert and Edward have
filed five civil suits against me, my family members and witnesses. In
March, the court ruled against us in one of the suits brought by Edward
for police harassment because the police did not appear in court. We are
currently appealing the ruling. Since 2007 members of my family and other
innocent people in my community have suffered and endured attacks,
harassment and intimidation by Edward, Ethelbert and their police,
soldiers and thugs.
And the state authorities have done little or nothing to address the
situation.
WHAT WE CAN DO
These issues must be raised with the Nigerian authorities at the
highest level. They should be kept on the front burner of international
relations and human rights advocacy until the Nigerian authorities take
appropriate actions. The Nigerian government must be made to understand
that the international community is aware of the facts of this case. And
that the world is outraged at the way they are handling it. The human
rights community should join hands with the IHEU in bringing this
disturbing trend to the attention of the world.
Leo Igwe is the Secretary of the Nigerian Humanist Movement and the
IHEU representative in West Africa
For more information see iheu.org
Witch Hunts and the New Dark Age in Africa
Aug 30th, 2011 | By Leo Igwe
As Africa’s
foremost scholar once noted, “From
time to time, there are witch hunting rituals and cleansing to ensure that
witches do not terrorize people and that their powers are kept under
control.”
Witches and sorcerers are the most hated
people in their community. Even to this day there are places and occasions
when they are beaten to death by the rest of the people.
So the witch hunt is not a recent
development in Africa. Belief in witchcraft constitutes part of the
traditional religion and the witch hunt is a form of traditional religious
expression. Witch hunting is as old as the belief in witchcraft in Africa.
The persecution of alleged witches has been going on in Africa from before
its contact with the ‘outside world’ – the West, the East, the advent of
colonialism, modern education, Christianity or Islam. Early Christian
missionaries regarded witchcraft accusations as a form of African ‘pagan
fetish practice’ that would eventually be replaced by the ‘civilizing
mission of christianity’. The colonial authorities also tried to eradicate
witch hunts. They criminalized witchcraft accusation. They made it a crime
for anybody to brand someone a witch or identify himself as a witch or a
wizard. This legislation popularly known as the Witchcraft Act was adopted
by many African countries after independence.
But the efforts by colonialists and
western missionaries to tackle the problem only drove the practice of
witchcraft accusation and witch hunting underground, because these measures did not really address
the fears and misconceptions that informed the belief in the existence of
witches, and the practice of witch hunting.
So, the end of colonialism and the
realization of self-rule by African countries opened the political and
religious space for people to express themselves. Hence the African region
has witnessed an eruption of witchcraft accusation and witch hunting by
state and non-state agents including churches. In fact the wave of witch
hunting sweeping across many parts of Africa is driven by
Christianity.
Witch hunting is a clear indication of
political and judicial failure.
In Ivory Coast and Central African
Republic, witchcraft was criminalized, and to this day accused persons are
sent to jail by judges. In Nigeria, Congo DRC and Central Africa, many
children accused of witchcraft are beaten, killed, abandoned or exiled
from their homes. They are subjected to torture, inhuman and degrading
treatment by pastors, churches and spiritual homes in the name of
exorcism. In Malawi, women accused of witchcraft are tortured and
maltreated. Some of them are prosecuted, convicted based on hearsay and
anecdotal evidence. They are sent to jail for committing ‘imaginary
crimes’. At least 50 women are languishing in prisons across Malawi for
witchcraft-related offences.
In some parts of Africa, women alleged
to be witches who survive attacks by the mob take refuge in camps. Some
witch camps currently exist in Northern Ghana and Burkina Faso. In Kenya,
Tanzania and Uganda, women accused of witchcraft are attacked and lynched.
In Gambia, at least one thousand alleged witches were arrested and
tortured by state security agents following the death of a relation of
President Yahya Jammeh who was allegedly killed through witchcraft. In
Tanzania, Burundi and Nigeria albinos have been targeted and killed by
those who believe their skin can be used to prepare potent magical
concoctions. In Zimbabwe, South Africa and Mozambique, those alleged to be
witches are persecuted and murdered.
Witch hunting continues to ravage Africa
due to lack of political and judicial will to address the problem. Many
African governments are perpetrating, aiding or abetting the persecution
and cleansing of alleged witches. Many states in Africa continue to turn a
blind eye as such atrocities are being perpetrated by non-state agents
like churches, witch doctors, mobs, thugs and religious fanatics and the
like. Many states are denying that such horrific abuses take place.
Actually the authorities do not see anything criminal in witchcraft
related abuses because they believe that witchcraft is a potent way of
harming somebody and do not want to engage in any form of ‘spiritual
warfare’.
Until recently the government in my
country has been in denial of the problem. Thanks to the efforts of
Stepping Stones Nigeria and its local and international partners, the
government of Akwa Ibom outlawed child witch stigmatization. Apart from
this recent legislation, in Nigeria, witchcraft accusation is a crime
punishable under the law. Still witchcraft accusations abound. Witchcraft
accusers and witch hunters like Helen Ukpabio and other evangelical
throwbacks get away with their crimes. Despite so many cases of child and
adult victims of witch hunts, nobody has been convicted of this offence to
date. But it is not all gloom and
doom. Efforts are being made by skeptic activists, groups and their
partners to address the problem. And those efforts are yielding results.
In fact efforts are underway in countries like Nigeria, Benin, Uganda,
Kenya, Malawi, Ghana etc to tackle the cultural scourge.
We are using a three prong strategy to
address the problem. First we
pressure the governments to stop persecuting alleged witches and wizards
(in Gambia), enforce the witchcraft act (in Nigeria, Kenya, Malawi),
decriminalize witchcraft (in Central African Republic and Ivory Coast). We
also campaign against moves to criminalize witchcraft(Malawi) and lobby
the government to protect the rights of victims (Nigeria, Ghana, Congo
DRC, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic,Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania
etc)
We liaise with local governmental and
non-governmental agencies to provide safe spaces for victims. And this
includes securing the release of those imprisoned and appealing the court
ruling and getting the judgement quashed (Malawi). We also get child
victims into shelters where they can receive proper care and support
(Nigeria).
We are also embarking on public
education programs to get people to realize that witchcraft is a myth or
superstition, and that witchcraft lacks any basis in reason, science and
common sense. We organise seminars in schools, colleges and universities
and distribute awareness materials to people in the markets, parks, and
public squares. We try to let people know the role of fiction, fantasy and
imagination in human perception, explanation and interpretation of
phenomena.
A very vital aspect of our enlightenment
campaign is the skeptical challenge. Renowned skeptics like James Randi
have used this facility to clip the wings of purveyors of paranormal and
superstitious nonsense. We challenge believers or practitioners of
witchcraft to provide evidence, proof or demonstration of the alleged
powers and claims associated with witchcraft. In Malawi the skeptic
activist Geogr Thindwa has challenged all the witch doctors in the country
to bewitch him and collect some huge sum of money but nobody has come
forward. To those who claim that people can be initiated into the
witchcraft coven or guild, we challenge them to initiate us. To those who
claim that people can contract witchcraft through eating biscuits or
peanuts, we buy biscuits and openly challenge them to infect us with
witchcraft. To those who claim people do turn or can turn to animals and
insects we challenge them to prove their magic. In Malawi we challenge
those who believe witches fly magic planes at night to show and
demonstrate that this so called magic plane can fly one meter above the
ground. Unlike the recently invented flying cars which you can actually
picture flying, Malawi’s magic planes are always on the ground. We
encourage people to question received knowledge and tradition and test
claims. We strive to get people to
understand the importance of seeking evidence and basing our knowledge,
accusations and positions on evidence, demonstrable evidence.
Leo Igwe sent this piece from
Canberra in Australia. |
