By Cardinal John Onaiyekan
Christmas is a Christian celebration, which has a specific meaning for those who believe in Jesus Christ, as the Son of God-Made-Man, an unimaginable doctrine that is tenable only to those who have received the gift of the Christian faith. The Christian, therefore, celebrates not only the gift of a wonderful child but also the enactment of God’s greatest plan for humanity, His becoming man and living among us (cf. John 1:14). St. Paul made this clear when he said: “When the appointed time, God sent His Son, born of a woman” (Gal. 4:4). That woman is the Virgin Mary, the young girl of Nazareth. Already in the Old Testament, the Prophet Isaiah foresaw that “The Virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel” (Is. 7:14). Matthew quoted this text in his story of the annunciation of the birth of Jesus, adding that Emmanuel is “a name, which means ‘God is with us’” (Matt. 1:24). Christians, therefore, have a profound spiritual motivation for celebrating Christmas.
In Nigeria, we thank God that Christmas has become a popular celebration, involving all our fellow citizens. The government grants a two-day public holiday to enable everyone celebrate, both Christians and non-Christians. It is a good thing that Christians celebrate with their neighbours, who are not of the same faith. Everyone must share in this mood of joy, peace and hope. It is a mood of God being with us. It is joy in the midst of challenges and economic recession, hope against every despair. It is a season for sharing, for expressing solidarity and for reaching out to others, especially to the poor and needy.
The nation not only celebrates the Christian festival of Christmas but also the Muslim religious feasts. It shows the importance of religion in our land. This is a spiritual asset that should make a positive impact on our land. True religion must be for peace, for justice, for honesty and harmony. Christmas is a time for us to take up anew the challenges of fashioning good relations among our differing religious communities. And this is not only between Christians and Muslims but also within our various religions. It is becoming more and more clear now that if we do not arrive at harmony within our faiths, it will be difficult to achieve peace between our faiths.
For this to happen, we need to agree on the place of religion in our nation. The age-old debate of the relationship between politics and religion cannot be avoided. This is particularly crucial in the area of the law of the land. Can we distinguish between the legal civil code that binds each one of us as citizens of the same nation and the religious moral norms, which each of us have embraced in freedom as part of his or her own religion? If we sincerely want a nation that is united and integrated, we must work seriously towards one law for every citizen. If we must tell the truth, it must be said that the Sharia issue is still burning. Recent moves in the National Assembly for a drastic review of our Constitution to make room for ecclesiastical laws side by side with Sharia is, perhaps, only the first salvo in a looming religious war that I believe is not too late to avoid.
It is, therefore, indeed about time we began to think seriously about thoroughly reviewing our Constitution in the line of working towards one nation, one law. Despite our pluralism of religions, and maybe even because of this, one law ought to be enough for the entire nation, provided the freedom of everyone is guaranteed. This can be achieved with the following two simple conditions: That the law of the land must not command what religious laws forbid, and that it must not forbid what religious laws command. This leaves everyone to freely follow the injunctions of his or her own religion, without dragging in the state. This is what obtains in many countries that have one law for all citizens of diverse religions.
We need, therefore, to promote and strengthen interreligious structures and initiatives. Here the role of the Nigeria Interreligious Council (NIREC) cannot be overemphasized. Nor can we delay indefinitely its resuscitation, so that it can once again be a forum for our efforts at promoting national religious harmony. Interreligious dialogue is very important but not enough. We must also promote intra-religious harmony. Intra-religious dialogue demands that we acknowledge pluralism and differences even within our faiths. The Christian community must accept the challenge of working towards ever-greater unity, as much as we can, rather than acquiescing or even encouraging and maybe celebrating our present state of scandalous dividedness. We ask God to show us the way to sort out the problems that have been bedeviling the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in the past few years.
Within the Islamic community, I beg to be allowed to strongly encourage that differences should also be recognised and taken on board, within the greater Islamic community. The recent crisis with the Shiite group is a cause for concern, not only for Muslims but also for the entire nation. If there are other Muslim groups, they too must have a right to free expression and an opportunity for them to play their own role for the building up of our nation. Every religious group must be seen as seeking ways to serve God and through God serving our neighbour, within the ambit of the law of the land. It is the duty of the state to protect all genuine religions, and be very slow to ban any, no matter how inconvenient.
Our country is in serious political, economic and social difficulties. We seem to have remained largely in the mood of political polarisation typical of election campaign period. After the election, which took place almost two years ago, campaigns are now over and we should by now be fully in governance mode. All hands must be on deck to face the many great challenges that are weighing heavily on our nation. We must forever ban the attitude of “winner takes all,” which also tends to provoke in the losers the counter mood of “pulling them down.” The winners cannot rule alone and the losers must be prepared to cooperate with those who now have the duty to lead the nation in the way forward.
At this Christmas, we must accept the message of peace, peace at all costs, including by the route of love, of humility and simplicity. It is of course the duty of government to make and enforce laws. But the endemic corruption in our land may be calling for some amount of negotiation towards repentance, refunds and possible amnesty. The limits of the route of tribunals are getting more and more obvious. The war against corruption must be waged with all possible weapons. It is the duty of the government to secure the land against armed insurrection. We congratulate our government for major progress made in dealing with Boko Haram crisis in the North East. But it is not yet all over. This is because there is a limit to how much arms and guns can do in this matter. We need to put more efforts in dialogue and political discussions, leading to reconciliation. Here the role of religion for positive action must be more consciously exploited.
We pray that soon the millions of our country men, women and children still living in camps as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) will be able to return home, a home that will be secure and ready to receive them. At the same time, however, more should be done to give them a viable option of settling elsewhere in the country. For example, there are many IDP camps all around Abuja. Those who have been languishing in these camps for more than two years have every right to ask for resettlement within the Federal Capital Territory. It is affront to human dignity to leave people to rot away in such camps. After all, almost all of us in Abuja have come to settle here from different parts of the nation.
In the meantime, however, while we thank God that the Boko Haram in the North East has been “technically defeated,” another almost equally serious security challenge has been building up all over the nation. I am referring to the bands of heavily armed bandits, who have gone on rampage for the last few years. They are often called “Fulani Herdsmen.” Whoever they are and wherever they are coming from, they have now constituted themselves into a major national security menace, which requires an effective action from our armed forces. They have been destroying farmlands, attacking villages and settlements, occupying captured ancestral lands and they have killed thousands of Nigerians. No wonder that my friend and brother, the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, has been quoted to have compared them to terrorists. This must stop. The authorities must take effective action, so as to defuse the rising tide of resentment and hatred in many communities against the Fulani herdsmen and all who are considered related to them.
Fellow Nigerians, we all come from families. In our families, which are the most important social unit, we accept one another, our parents as well as our siblings, as gifts of God. We have not chosen them. God has given them to us. The same family attitude ought to be extended to our national belonging. Despite all debates about whether or not it was a mistake to have put us together in one country in 1914, the fact is that we are already together. It would be wiser, and far less cumbersome and problematic to put all our efforts together to accepting one another as God’s gift. We must do our best to live in peace and harmony, not only despite our differences but also because of our common values and common challenges.
Let me conclude with the wise words from a great politician, diplomat and intellectual of our neighboring nation of Benin Republic, Professor Albert Tevoedjre. He says: “Faced with the impossibility of placing a soldier behind each citizen to guarantee his or her safety, the only credible sustainable option is to strengthen all the mechanisms that enable us to live together despite all our differences.”
– John Cardinal Onaiyekan is the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Abuja.