The event Christians commemorate today, on Good Friday, the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth on the orders of Roman Governor Pontius Pilate, was one of the many instances in the history of humanity where the powers of state and religion were collaboratively used unjustly.  
  
A poor peasant was arrested by his enemies, branded a blasphemer, sentenced to death by leaders of his people, and executed in a most gruesome manner, following confirmation of the death sentence by a governor who was the leader of an army of occupation deployed by the Roman Emperor. Out of political expediency, Pilate and Herod, hitherto enemies, wanting to eliminate Jesus, became friends.  In the alliance of both men, a decadent religious establishment and an oppressive colonial government buried their differences to bury a just man.          
 
Today, as in times past, there are many Pilates and Herods. Pilate and Herod represent every person in authority who would treat justice as a disposable paper towel at a banquet in which the oppressed is served as food for the oppressor. 
 
In such individuals, before and after the crucifixion of Jesus, even as this piece is being read, in familiar and unfamiliar climes, the world has witnessed and continues to witness the tragic instrumentalisation of state power to silence dissenting voices.  Even more perplexing is where legitimate authority is put to illegitimate use to install and maintain an immoral and illegal status quo.  The powerful decree what is right as wrong, and what is wrong as right. The weak have no voice. Ambiguity of power has made and continues to make victims of the powerless.  
  
The law is quoted and or misquoted to support injustice.  The weak, the voiceless and the defenceless are left to swim in their blood, writhing in pain, while the powerful jubilate. The oppressed are left to suffer in the silence of hopelessness while the oppressor celebrates. In their hunger and thirst for justice, victims of misuse of power find nowhere to turn.  In many countries of the world, if the powerless dare protest, powerful state propaganda machinery and oppressive security agencies, in their various manifestations of cruelty, remind them that it is unlawful to protest. History is presented as a continuous reenactment of the crucifixion of the just by the unjust. 
  
As the crucifixion of Jesus is commemorated this year, all who desire a better world, not only Christians, must subject themselves to an interrogation: what part are we playing in this drama of seemingly ceaseless crucifixion of Nigeria?  As the drama of injustice continues to unfold, some are active in perpetuating injustice, some others are co-conspirators by the mere fact of their silence, some are victims, and even some among the victims eulogise their oppressors and are willing to kill and or be killed in the name of their oppressors.
  
In all this, Christianity proclaims a mysterious message of hope: that the very act in which the powerful conquer the weak is the act in which the powerful are definitively defeated by the powerless.  The state was used to silence the peasant Jesus of Nazareth.  But, in this same act, perpetrators of injustice were silenced, while the message of this same Jesus continues to resonate through history and across many lands.
  
As is the case every year, on this occasion, Christians in Nigeria will be inundated with goodwill messages from Nigeria’s powerful political leaders across the party spectrum. While such messages should be well-taken, Nigerian politicians, especially in the light of increasingly persistent political misconduct and blatant misuse of power in recent times, also across the party spectrum, should interrogate themselves: are they agents of justice or injustice? In whose interest are they speaking and acting?  In the interest of the oppressed people of Nigeria, or their selfish interest?
 
In a manner that reenacts the unholy alliance of Pilate and Herod, within Christianity itself, a cacophony of doctrines exists whereby many who claim to be preaching its message misrepresent Christianity, and use such misrepresented Christianity as opium and an instrument of manipulation of an oppressed populace. Early Christians had ways of authenticating sermons and claims of miracles.  Here and now in the 21st century, non-authenticated teachings are presented as prophecies, and non-authenticated acts are presented as miracles before a populace dazed by poverty and harassed by insecurity and bad governance. In a land where religiosity is being used to sustain poverty, there are clear indications that some who parade themselves as messengers of the crucified Jesus are themselves crucifiers of the message.
  
Nigeria today is in dire need of justice. Without the rule of justice, our democracy is in clear and present danger.  Nigeria must not return to the dark days of the past, the dark days of brutal, unconscionable and arrogant military rule disguised as democratic rule. The story of the crucifixion of Jesus is a call on Nigerians to refrain from returning to the path of misrule. We must stand up for what is right, for what is true and loving. The spirit of Pontius Pilate and the spirit of Herod must be stifled so that the spirit of justice will emerge.  
 
On this Good Friday, we must resolve to put an end to this seemingly ceaseless crucifixion of Nigeria. For it to cease, let it be marked in our individual and collective consciousness that the onus is on every Nigerian, leaders and people, to live up to the ideal of the 1960 National Anthem, the ideal of building a nation where no man, woman or child is oppressed.  This is what we owe ourselves and generations yet unborn.