justicejay:
There are three American brands that
Nigerians patronide hugely: Facebook,
Microsoft, and Apple.
Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of Facebook, is
an atheist; Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, is
an agnostic (neither believes nor doubts the
existence of God); Steve Jobs, founder of
Apple, was a Zen Buddhist. Yet, Nigerians love
them and patronise their products hugely.
If these three men were Nigerians who
professed atheism, agnosticism and Zen
Buddhism publicly, how would many Nigerians
react to them?
Last week, Zuckerberg visited Nigeria and
many Nigerians were drooling over him for
walking and jogging in Lagos. He left for Kenya
and was pictured eating ugali and tilapia with
his bare hands. Many Nigerians shared the
photograph and captioned it, “Zuckerberg
enjoying Nigerian meal with his bare hands like
a true Nigerian.”
It seemed Aso Rock was not happy that the
young billionaire visited Nigeria without paying
a visit to the Nigerian seat of power; for a day
after leaving Nigeria for Kenya, he returned to
Nigeria and visited Abuja, took groupies with
President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice-
President Yemi Osinbajo. The President and
the Vice-President were full of smiles in the
pictures they took with Zuckerberg.
What if Zuckerberg were an atheist and a
Nigerian? Or what if Zuckerberg were an
adherent of the African Traditional Religion,
which we arrogantly call paganism or idolatry?
In Nigeria there are ONLY two religions:
Christianity and Islam. Other religions are
treated with contempt by most Nigerians. Even
the government at all levels discriminates
against other religions. That is why different
levels of government sponsor only Christian
and Muslim pilgrims. The Federal Government
also gives Christians and Muslims special
concessionary dollar rates during pilgrimages,
while leaving companies that manufacture
goods to source their dollars at the prevailing
market rates, leading to the shutting down of
many companies and loss of thousands of
jobs.
Imagine if a person was told to pray at a
gathering of Nigerian politicians or business
executives in Abuja and the person began to
call on “Amadioha” or “Ogun” and the
ancestors. Those in attendance would not wait
for him to finish before protesting and
stopping the prayers. But if the person had
prayed the Muslim way, the Christians would
say “amen” at the end of the prayers, even
though they don’t understand the Arabic
spoken by the Muslim and don’t share the
beliefs of the Muslims. In the same vein, if a
Christian had prayed, the Muslims would say
“amen” even if the Christian ended his prayer
with “through Jesus Christ our Lord”: it would
not matter that Muslims don’t believe in the
godhead of Jesus Christ.
Similarly, if a Muslim offers a Christian meat
from the ram killed during sallah, the Christian
would eat. If a Christian offers a Muslim the
meat from the goat killed during Christmas or
Easter, the Muslim would accept and eat. But if
an adherent of the ATR offers a Nigerian
Muslim or Christian meat from a ram killed
during the festival of Ogwugwu or Sango, he
would most likely reject it or quietly throw it
away as “meat from an animal sacrificed to
idols.”
Therefore, the Nigerian Christian and Muslims
have been conditioned to view each other’s
faith as acceptable religion, even though that
has not stopped the decades of religious
violence that has marked the religious practice
in Nigeria in the country. Any other religion
outside these two is viewed with contempt or
outright opposition. Professing a lack of belief
in God is even given worse treatment.
An atheist is viewed in Nigeria as an
embodiment of the devil and everything evil.
He is believed to be an enemy that must not be
associated with to avoid infecting others with
the “curse” he carries. He is not expected to
succeed in life. He is not expected to be
wealthy. Even if he acquires wealth or success
“by mistake,” he is expected to lose it soon,
because it is seen as a gift from Satan. Any
tragedy that befalls him is seen as a
punishment from God, and he gets little or no
sympathy. Girls would not be eager to marry
him because he is an atheist or has a different
religion from Christianity and Islam. If he has a
product or service, many would refuse to
patronise him, so as not to contract the
“atheist curse” that they believe he bears.
But Nigerians hypocritically drool over
Zuckerberg. They want to be like him: young,
handsome, intelligent, super-rich. They forget
that he is an atheist. When they wake up, the
first thing they do is to open their phone and
visit Zuckerberg’s business, Facebook, to read
the latest gossip and news and exchange
pleasantries and quarrels with friends and
foes. If they are not on Facebook, they are on
WhatsApp or Instagram, also owned by the
same atheist, Zuckerberg. If Zuckerberg were
not married, many would throw themselves at
him even before he proposed. If he were to
even decide to settle in Nigeria and become a
polygamist, many Nigerian ladies would gladly
accept to be second, third or 20th wife, if he
decided to acquire a harem, despite all his
atheism.
In the same vein, Nigerians resume in their
different offices and spend all their day solving
problems with Microsoft and making money
through it. They do not remember that Bill
Gates, the founder of Microsoft, is an agnostic,
and that his faith or lack of it has not
prevented him from being the world’s richest
man and one of the greatest philanthropists.
Similarly, Nigerians flaunt their iPads and iPods
and iPhones without remembering that Steve
Jobs was a Zen Buddhist, who – as reported by
his authorised biographer, Walter Isaacson –
renounced his Christian faith after seeing the
July 1968 Life magazine with the cover
photograph of starving Biafran children. In
Nigeria, Zen Buddhism would be seen as “idol
worship” because of the statues of Buddha. If
Jobs were a Nigerian and had died of cancer,
many would have sneered that “God had
visited him with cancer for rejecting
Christianity and embracing idolatry.”
However, because these people are not
Nigerians, whatever they do does not matter
to many Nigerians. Just like it does not matter
if a 25-year-old CNN broadcaster calls our
President – past or present – “Mr Buhari” or
“Mr Jonathan” or “Mr Obasanjo.” Our President
so addressed would accept it with a smile. But
let a Nigerian broadcaster address our
President – past or present – as “ordinary Mr”
and all hell would be let loose.
“How dare you address a whole army general
or PhD holder as ordinary Mr?”
We have an intolerant attitude towards
religion. We assume that only those who
practise religion exactly the way we do have
any right to be happy and successful. Some
even believe that only those who practise their
own brand of religion have a right to live.
But religion should be a private affair. Each
person is supposed to practise his or her own
religion without hindrance or discrimination
while also allowing others to practise theirs
without any disturbance or discrimination. Our
lives should be the gospel people read, not our
words posturing.
Twitter @BrandAzuka
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