On religious and religional sentiments

The worst and the most devastating of all the vices that mired Nigeria deeply in the slush of her hitherto woes are religious and regional sentiments. I really have no ounce of idea as to when it would be learnt by Nigerians the obvious of facts that good virtue is not only religiously motivated but rather an objective principle in every man inspired by nature.

This does not tend in anyway to draw a line of dichotomy between morality, good virtue and religion, hence the elements are meshed tightly up. But when the fact that even a nonreligious person is not bereft of good virtue and morality, in both the sense of having conceptual framework for good leadership and social interactions, is radically taken into cognizance, one would be fleshed out of detrimental religious and regional sentiments and out of ignorant conception that one’s religion is the basis for all his actions and inactions.

Owing to the fact that Muslims have the largest percent of population over the Christians in the North, and that the reverse has happened to be the case in the South, the phenomenon of ”unity in diversity” has been made utopia by those at political stakes. Having spotted sentiment as the greatest blindspot of Nigerians, the monstrous political elite have ever since been well-using it to manipulate and segregate the masses religiously and regionally by the dint of inciting groundless virulent animosity between them (people), for the attainment of their personal and ambitious goals.

Despite the deep-rootedness of loathesome and unholy religious and regional sentiments in Nigerians, the conclusion that would be reached by even the most sentimental and casual observer over the landscape of Nigerian politicians is that, they are essentially selfsame; rotten, deceptive, over ambitious, morally and religiously corrupt, driven by their voracious and selfish quests for wealth and power, in pursuit of which they revel in disuniting and segregating the masses especially by the virtue of religion and region.

However, the most unfortunate, and in view of which one can’t help being pessimistic, is the fact that Nigerians are shallow minded enough to always be benighted by unholy sentiments and prejudices to be repeating the same appalling mistake over and over again, by making religion and region the most paramount of qualities in a leader, that would pose him within the latitude of having their votes, without taking into consideration his competence, broad-mindedness and his readiness and ability to ride the wagon of the nation out of the mire of existential menaces to the dream land.

While it’s certain that no one is absolutely free from sentiments and prejudices, hence everyone is a product of their environment and social culturization, there are certain people who are broad-minded, who weigh things not on the regional and religious scale, and who regard not a particular region but the whole country as their constituency, who are aware of their sentiments and the natural differences between themselves and others, who have nothing to do with such affiliations or differences in the course of rendering their service to the state.

Our ship would certainly keep sinking, until unity is taken as a force to be reckoned with, and go beyond the boundaries of prejudices to work for what benefits humanity rather than ourselves and region. Until what poses one within latitude of having our votes are not affiliations or differences but his competency to navigate Nigeria as a ship on the verge of being capsized by a myriad of challenges.

Hisham Saleh Gidado is a poet, essayist and short story writer from Gombe, Gombe state.