When cometh the Islamisation of Nigeria?

I had to get over my hissy fit before I could write this essay. I had not seen Cosmos since 2014. He is now a radical ideologue on a mission to save Christians from the hands of Muslims planning to Islamise Nigeria. My emotions were massively overdrawn.‬ Cosmos is a highly cerebral fellow, and I am shocked that he has fallen for this religious stratagem.
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The puritanical brow of Christians in Nigeria furrow quickly when issues concerning Muslims are discussed.  The narrative is that there are plans to make all Nigerians Muslims very soon, thanks to the Islamisation agenda of some people in the north. Soon Nigeria would be an Islamic country, according to them.‬
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I love to ask questions. How do they plan to do this? At international meetings to be ratified by a Muslim league? Would they then follow up with a Muslim Army on horseback like in the early 19th century, conquering swathes of land? Point arrows at our heads and ask us to renounce our faith or die? I am just imagining how this would be possible in the scare-mongering south, even when there are states in the north with mixed populations of Christians, Muslims and Animists. Not counted are the flash-points of Kaduna, Kano, Bauchi and the Boko Haram-troubled north east.
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Does being a member of a religious body put food on the table for anyone? Do we not see subscribers to religions go hungry everywhere? For instance, aren’t Christians also nepotistic. Before the D-day for an election in my Catholic Church, I heard someone whisper to another, “we are the dominant ethnic group in this church and must not allow that position to go to that man who is from Delta.” How many wealthy religious people on all sides seek out the poor and provide for people in this straitened period?
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It is shameful that most folks who shout the most about Islamisation do not know that there is a book of Tobit and Judith in the Christian Holy Book aside from King James’ version but do not know the reason for his ex-communication from the Catholic Church. Neither do they know what vexed the royalty sourly and led to the barring of Catholics from succession to the throne of England in the will of Henry VIII. Do they know it was once even considered a matter of high treason for a Jesuit to set foot in England in 1585?
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Hanan Ashrawi, a Christian for years, has been a Palestinian activist and spokesperson for the Palestinian cause. Despite the despotic reign of Saddam Hussein, Tariq Aziz – a Christian Catholic was Deputy Prime Minister and at one time the Foreign Minister of Iraq and a strong ally of Saddam Hussein. Sirhan Sirhan, the Palestinian who assassinated Robert F Kennedy didn’t do so on behalf of Muslims but because of the beef he had with Robert F. Kennedy for supporting the cause of Israel. He was a Palestinian Christian.‬
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It is embarrassing that we have elected to help politicians and morally-barren religious people to promote this bland narrative. A crook is a crook not because of his faith but because of his moral fibre. One does not have to subscribe to a religion to be morally upright. For those who associate Christianity with the white man, the white man (caucasoid) is not the founder of Christian faith. All religions notably Christianity, Islam and Judaism were started by Mongoloids not Caucasoids.
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We are neither Caucasoids nor Mongoloids and in the lands of the Caucosoids most religious homes are now relics and museums and gays have rights and some are reverend gentlemen. We are as morally bankrupt and intemperate as the white Christian folks who wrote:
‬”Baa Baa black sheep,
‬Have you any wool?
‬Yes, sir, yes, sir,
‬Three bags full –
‬One for the Master,
‬One for the Dame
‬And one for the little boy
‬Who lives down the lane.”
‬They never remembered to write “Baa Baa white sheep….”
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Interestingly, Christian racism started from the white masters (Caucosoids).  Many examples are in the public domain but allow me to mention two for emphasis: Count Zinzendorf the great Moravian minister in 1731 told his friend King Christian VI of Denmark of his plans to travel to Africa to preach to the people. And the King thundered: “How can you do that? They are the firewood of hell! It is impossible for a black person ever to go to heaven. What a fool you are! … “ “Do you really believe (the king said) that it could be in purpose of God that Negro slaves can be saved and go to heaven? You cannot possibly mean to say that with God there is no difference between race and colour and that a black man is worth just as much with God as his white master? Yes, that there would in heaven be no difference between a slave and his master? You do admit, don’t you, that God has indeed cursed Negroes and left them to their own to be doomed for time and eternity?

How else could slavery be possible, how could God allow that we steal these people or (shall I say) creatures and exploit them for our own use? Don’t you feel that by preaching to these creatures that God loves them and that He wants to redeem them and wants them in heaven, that you condemn the entire white race and you insult them? Because, either you are right and slavery is from Satan and all those who are engaged in it are servants of Satan, or they are really cursed, but then you have no right to intervene and preach a false Gospel to them. You would be creating a terrible disaster in that way.”
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A missionary having spent only ten months in Southern Nigeria had this to say, “The people are of a low type. They live for the most part in crude nudity. The older men and women can recall the taste of human flesh. They are all lazy. They do not know God.”‬

It would be of help for us to know the history of our religion and not settle for the self-importance of religion without self-discipline. No religion in Nigeria has advanced the growth of our country, unfortunately. I therefore wonder why alignments for the sake of religion, should be the main concern of many people.

‬Abah is a public affairs analyst based in Port-Harcourt.