By Celestine Mel
It is a pity once more, that this intervention seeks to wrestle with a ghost; a long, brooding echo of fear masquerading as civic concern. The essay that provoked this response is one of those anxiety-soaked treatises designed to lacerate the fragile fabric of our nation, weaponizing religion to contaminate the very air we breathe.
Reading it closely, I discerned the deliberate mischief and the coded conspiracies; the manipulative rhetoric and the familiar drumbeats of division. And I am forced to ask: how is it that a people so repeatedly wounded by history have refused to learn from its painful lessons? How long shall we allow religion to become the hammer with which we nail our collective soul to the cross of ignorance?
Nigeria is a vast mosaic of faiths. We have Christians, Muslims, and others, cohabiting, hustling, and hurting together. None of these religions sprouted from our soil. Rather, they are imports and relics of conquest and colonization. Yet we clutch them with such unreflective ferocity that we bruise one another in their defense. We have converted foreign faiths into indigenous weapons, worshipping suspicion in place of God.
This pathology is not new.
In 1991, under the Babangida administration, the Banking and Other Financial Institutions Decree (BoFID) quietly introduced the notion of a “profit-and-loss sharing bank” whish is the earliest statutory whisper of what would later mature into non-interest banking. The provision remained dormant in BoFID until 2004, when Professor Charles Soludo assumed office as Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Soludo’s mission was intellectually elegant and economically visionary. He knew that Nigeria was grossly underbanked and we needed to expand financial inclusion, deepen intermediation, and channel idle capital into productive ventures capable of lifting the national economy.
A 2006 CBN study under his leadership uncovered something profound: millions of Nigerian Muslims consciously avoided conventional banks because they considered interest (riba) haram. At the time, fewer than 20% of Nigerians had access to formal banking services. Soludo’s committee therefore proposed a sharia-compliant banking system and framework to accommodate that excluded segment of the population.
Before implementation could commence, Soludo’s tenure ended and Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi inherited the framework. Upon assumption of office, Sanusi reviewed the final draft and invited applications from those willing to establish Sharia Banks, akin to the existing models in the UK.
Then all hell broke loose.
The atmosphere thickened with ignorance. Pulpits erupted. Editorials seethed with alarm. Commentators screamed of an elaborate conspiracy to “Islamize Nigeria.” Some even alleged that Sanusi had been a classmate of Osama bin Laden in Sudan and that both had plotted to dip the Holy Qur’an into the Atlantic Ocean. It would have been comic were it not so tragically absurd.
I remember that season vividly because I lived through it and I wrote copiously then to separate fact from fiction. I had no idea that I would one day serve within the very financial system I was defending.
To calm the hysteria, the CBN quietly withdrew the document titled Islamic Banking Policy and reissued it as Non-Interest Banking Policy. The noise subsided, but the principles remained intact: Sharia advisory councils, the prohibition of riba, and the introduction of instruments such as Mudarabah, Ijara, Musharakah, and Sukuk.
The outcome was transformative. Financial inclusion rose from less than 20% to 45%. Jaiz Bank, Taj Bank, Lotus Bank, and The Alternative Bank emerged. Conventional banks opened non-interest windows. And here lies the irony: today, more Christians than Muslims utilize the services of these banks, and not a single faith has been diluted, not a single creed compromised. Not one Chruch has been turned into a Mosque. It has been an all round success.
Now, why do I revisit this history? Because our selective amnesia keeps reinventing itself.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration is envisioning a $1 trillion economy, an audacious yet necessary ambition. His wife is a pastor in the Redeemed Christian Church of God. Our predecessor VP, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, is a senior pastor in the same denomination. Yet, with a plan to unveil the Nigeria National Halal Economy Strategy, the old ghosts have reawakened, whispering once again of Islamization, hidden agendas, and phantom conspiracies. Again?
Let us be clear: “Halal” simply means “permissible.” It is an economic framework, not a missionary crusade. It is inclusion, not invasion. But in Nigeria, we are capable of finding the devil even in a drop of holy water.
Tinubu’s strategy acknowledges that many Muslims who would otherwise stand aloof, need to join the train. If you aspire to build a trillion-dollar economy, you cannot afford to alienate anybody on account of faith. It is common sense, not religious sense. But in our clime, sense itself has become an endangered species.
We are a nation addicted to suspicion. Fifth columnists thrive by peddling fear to the gullible, and the gullible, in turn, pay in blood.
Look around the world: Jerusalem, once a perennial theatre of tears, has become a hub of technology. Saudi Arabia, custodian of the Kaaba, is constructing futuristic cities powered by artificial intelligence. Humanity is preparing to inhabit Mars. Elon Musk has already littered the skies; the same heaven we once imagined as God’s secret address, with LEO satellites that beam the internet into our palms.
Meanwhile, we the self-proclaimed Giant of Africa, are still quarrelling over who prays with a mat and who kneels by a pew.
We must awaken. The world will not suspend its progress while we quarrel over the architecture of our gods.
This brings me to my first public comment on the raging genocide debate which has attracted the concerns of Senator Ted Cruz and other right-wing operatives in Uncle Sam’s country.
During President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, the dominant accusation was that he sought to Islamize Nigeria and that Christians were under siege. It was politically expedient rhetoric, but the facts painted a different portrait. Boko Haram, which emerged under President Yar’Adua and reached its violent zenith under President Goodluck Jonathan, slaughtered far more Muslims than Christians. Even today, the daily bloodletting across the North-East, North-West and North-Central spares no creed. The blood of Muslim farmers and Christian traders mingle in the same rivers. Grief knows no religion.
And yet, we have megaphoned genocide so consistently that the West has begun to believe that Christians are the sole victims of systematic extermination in Nigeria. Is that true? We know it is not. What we have is a nation suffocating under the weight of pervasive insecurity; one that discriminates against no tribe, no faith, no class. Muslims, Christians, and traditionalists alike exist under the same cloud of fear, yoked to the same chaos.
From Benue to Zamfara, from Jos to Kaduna, lives are being cut short daily, not because of religion, but because we have turned against ourselves. We have allowed our differences define our lack of humanity. So can we, in good conscience, label it genocide when everyone bleeds beneath the same sky?
Our real tragedy is that we have skirted over the root causes that tear our common humanity apart and chosen to point fingers at the shadows.. Instead of confronting our dysfunctions, we canonize our grievances and baptize our prejudices. We are not building trust among ourselves. Rather, we are allowing hopeless politicians define the narrative and exploit our differences.
Nigeria’s crisis is not fundamentally religious. It is a crisis of irresponsibility, in leadership, in followership, and in narrative. We have turned faith into a flag and fear into a national currency.
It is time to end this genocide of reason; this self-inflicted blindness that transforms brothers into adversaries. God does not require our lies for His defense; He requires our wisdom for His world. We need to pull in one direction and exterminate fear from our souls.
Until we grasp that truth, we shall continue to pray amid ruins — to a heaven that has long moved on.
