Becoming a better citizen, by ADEWALE Kupoluyi

In a recent chat with a Christian theologian and Associate Professor of Conflict Management, the issue of citizenship came up for discussion.
We looked at how a blend of citizenship and Christianity can better our society in view of the many problems facing the country.
In this context, citizenship is the legal status or condition of a person in relation to a given geo-political community or state.
Therefore, to be called a citizen means belonging to a geo-political entity or state and also enjoying full rights and privileges such as political, economic, social and religious; that are accruable to citizens.
In return for the rights and privileges, the citizens are meant to enjoy what is guaranteed by the state while a citizen owes the state certain duties, responsibilities and obligations.
Citizenship and Christianity are related because people of Christian faith live within a state or country as citizens.
Christianity is guided by certain divine principles, instructions and commandments.
Failure to abide by adherents leads to sinful behaviour, which have dire consequences.
Similarly, a country or state is governed by a set of laws, rules and regulations that are binding on the citizens.
Daily, Christians and citizens face the contempt of corruption, wickedness and criminality that pervades the society while the inability of citizens to comply with these manmade laws brings about punishments and sanctions.
Therefore, there is the need to strike a good balance between citizenship and Christianity in the country, for man to live in peace and harmony in the society.
The concept of citizenship dates back to the ancient Greek City-State of Athens, where the population was divided into two distinct classes, the citizens and the slaves.
Even though, citizenship is often not clearly included in the fundamental rights section of the Nigerian 1999 Constitution (as amended), it is less fundamental and cannot be tampered with without the acquiescence of the person claiming it (Shugaba v. Minister of Internal Affairs and Ors (1982) 3NCLR1.
Constitutions of modern states stipulate the status; rights and privileges of citizens, the qualification for citizenship or the means of securing citizenship by aliens are spelt out in most constitutions.
However, it should be noted that citizenship refers to only natural persons in terms of human beings and not to artificial persons unlike companies and industries (Insurance Company v.
New Orleans, 1870).
The 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) recognizes citizenship by birth in which children, whose parents are already citizens of a particular state, automatically become citizens of that country.
Citizenship by registration in which one is said to have obtained citizenship by registration if such person, after the due process and meeting official conditions, is granted citizenship by the President.
Naturalisation is the one by which any person, who is qualified, may apply to the President for the grant of a certificate of naturalisation.
Because of the nexus between citizenship and Christianity, the social contract theory, as explained by Jean Jacques Rousseau in 1762, is relevant to the discourse in the sense that individuals surrender all their rights to the community or state and after making the contract, may only have such rights that are given to them in the General Will (Law).
Sovereignty, which belongs to the community of such individuals, is what is absolute and not the government itself, which is absolute.
This means that individuals still have freedom from depending on any other body rather than themselves in a contract so entered into by them in a society.
Despite its relevance, Rousseau’s theory has also been criticised for being illogical, by presupposing that political consciousness in a people, who are merely living in a state of nature.
Despite these lofty ideals of the constitution with regards to the idea of citizenship, what we see today is that aliens appear to be less discriminated than Nigerians, who share different indigeneship in their places of residence.
Many of the problems facing Nigeria can be said to be man-made and be attributed to bad leadership, which is worsened by unrelenting corruption, poor maintenance culture and lack of patriotism.
Christians should make a clear difference in the world by serving as good example for others and respecting people of other faiths or religions.
To ensure sanity, should the government then legislate on morality? Which of the moral issues should be legislated upon? Before departing from the theologian, we agreed that citizenship and Christianity are closely related because people of Christian faith live within a state or country and are known as citizens or the citizenry.
Failure to abide by Christian adherents leads to sinful behaviour, which have dire consequences.
The inability of citizens to comply with these man-made laws brings about punishments and sanctions even though; Christians are expected to obey God rather than men.
However, what is important for us is the need to admit that there is the need to strike a good balance between citizenship and Christianity in our society, for man to live in peace and harmony.
That is what we really need to do to have a better country

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