How Nigeria can manage Inter-Religion Uproar in the Country Toward development.

By: Salaudeen A I  - Data Scientist

One of the important factors in the history of human development is crisis. Regardless of its cause and form, crisis usually bring new dimension to the helm of human development.

Industrial crisis, Health crisis, Economic and Political crisis are always followed with a kind of developmental shift in the human history. The matter is not different for inter-religion crisis, which is referred to as any form of violence, attack, clash or conflicts between individual(s) of basically different believe or faith.

Although stakeholders response to crisis goes a long way in determining what follows - development or destruction. Religious crisis or Inter-Religion crisis, unlike other forms of disturbance is delicate to be dealt or respond to due to the depth of religions' roots in the heart of human. The believers are ready to do anything to promote or defend their faith which makes it difficult of judge which party in the crisis is right or wrong. Actors in this acts were always ready to face the law without feeling guilty or deny their actions and this make them to become heroes and mentors to the people in their believe arena, so therefore a robust and strategic steps are required in curbing and preventing its occurrence. This concept is a global phenomenon and so it is in Nigeria as well.

In response to the resent Sokoto event, our analyst decided to look into previous occurrence of this kind and related ones in Nigeria. It was discovered that not less than thirty-one reported uproars had occurred between any two combination of Muslims, Christians and Traditionalists since 1980, some of which are October 12, 2001 Kano anti-America protest over the bombing of Afghanistan which later turned violent toward ethnicity and religious line and lead to not less than 150 death; November 16, 2002 Miss World Muslims attack on Christians and churches over an alleged blasphemy of their noble Prophet by an author of an article published on This Days newspaper which also claimed over 250 lives; another example was the Fulanis attack on a Christian village in Jos on March 7, 2010 also lead to the death of about 500 women and children; another event was in this same Jos in 2011 (29th August) where Muslims and Christians clashed during Ramadan prayer at Rukuba which caused 20 death and loss of properties to include vehicles. And last in this list was the November 29, 2009 Bauchi religious violence unleashed by Kala-kato sects on Christians that lead to about 38 death and 1000 people displaced internally. All the three major religions have the history of been the attacker as well as been the victim or oppressed. These unfortunate events have claimed not less than three thousand three hundred and forty-two (3,342) lives and hundreds of millions worth properties vandalized with average of 150 annual and not less than three weekly live lose to this kind of event since the return of democracy in 1999.

The pattern discovered in the course of our analysis make it clear that clashes and riots taking ethno-religious form was the main gateway into the said problem and also counter reactions to previous clash or attack in form of reprisal or protest was the second contributor. Meanwhile, between 1999 and 2019, four (4) blasphemies were recorded to have lead to clashes and killing of people and damaging of properties, listing of which is not in the scope of this content. The three most volatile state in the history of inter religion clash in Nigeria are Plateau, Kaduna and Kano while the most volatile years are year 2000, 2008 and 2009 respectively based on the number of death recorded and magnitude of the violence.

Prob 1: Some cases of Inter-Religion violence in Nigeria by State, 1998 - 2019.

Source: Adopted from the Journal of Humanity and Social Studies with Modifications by Author; FreshtouStat, 2022

Prob 2: Death recorded due to Inter-Religion violence in Nigeria, 1999 - 2019

Source: Adopted from the Journal of Humanity and Social Studies with Modifications by Author; FreshtouStat, 2022

Further probe into the gateways of these unfortunate brouhahas established protest to be the most dangerous and has ever been a destructive aftermath in this context. Our analyst discovered  0.26 probability that any staged protest pro or against religion crisis will be bloody and claim lives. This probability is too high; it means that one out of four protest on religion crisis will be bloody. Protest accounted for 1151 of the total death since 1999 which is around 34% of the total death. It is therefore dangerous to stage a protest on this volatile issues, it is therefore advisable to abstain from participating in any protest of this kind if it is not abolished by the planners.

However, stakeholders in this matter including government and its agents at all levels need to be proactive as well as be strategic while sincerely dealing with matters of this kind. Religious tolerance, giving regards and respects to others believe and abolishment of dirty politics are right ways to go in curbing inter-religion crisis in our dear country.

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