Freedom of Religion: Country Studies - Nigeria
Rankings in Freedom in the World 2010: 4 Political Rights, 4 Civil Liberties (Partly Free)
Summary
Nigeria is Africa's 14th-largest country by area and its most
populous, with 144 million inhabitants. It is also one of the more
urbanized countries in Africa, with about half of the population living
in cities. GDP by standard measurement was $115 billion in 2006, the
47th largest in the world. GNI per capita was $640, ranked 172nd. By
PPP, the GNI per capita was $1,050, or 195th in the world. Nigeria's
economy is dominated by its petroleum industry, based in the Niger
River delta. It is the world's 12th-largest oil producer and also has
large untapped reserves of natural gas. Once an agricultural exporter,
today it imports a large percentage of its food.
Nigeria |
Nigeria has some 250 ethnic groups, each with its own language in
one of several language families. The country is also split
religiously. About 50 percent of the population is Muslim, 40 percent
is Christian, and the remainder adhere to indigenous beliefs. Muslims
live mostly in the north and Christians in the south, but every state
has a mixed religious population.
After declaring independence from Great Britain in 1960, Nigeria had
only six years of democratic government before it plunged into nearly
three decades of military dictatorship, with only a brief respite.
Today, the Federal Republic of Nigeria is considered a democracy,
having held presidential and parliamentary elections in 1999, 2003, and
2007. Olusegun Obasanjo, a former military ruler, won the first two
presidential elections, and his party's candidate, Umaru Yar'Adua,
succeeded him in the 2007 election. Obasanjo's ethnically mixed party
won parliamentary majorities in all three elections. However, the
balloting has been widely seen as tainted by fraud and other abuses,
and the country faces an array of problems, including poverty,
instability, corruption, and religious friction.
 About 50 percent of the population is Muslim, 40 percent is Christian, and the remainder adheres to indigenous beliefs.  |
History
Precolonial Period
The first evidence of human habitation in Nigeria dates to about
9000 BC. By the fourth century BC, residents of the area had developed
ironworking technology and produced distinctive terra-cotta sculpture.
During and after the first millennium AD, a number of city-states
emerged among the country's various ethnic groups. Several Hausa states
took root in the north, as did a portion of the Kanem-Bornu Empire to
the northeast. Yoruba kingdoms occupied the southwest, and in the
southeast, the Igbo established a decentralized, village-based
political system.
These and other polities vied for territory and control of trade
routes throughout the precolonial period. The southern states practiced
local or regional polytheistic religions, with the leaders or kings
often serving as high priests. In the north, Islam began to spread in
the 11th century, assisted by the influence of Kanem-Bornu and the Mali
and Songhai Empires based to the west of modern Nigeria. In the early
1800s, leaders from the traditionally pastoral Fulani ethnic group
established an Islamic state centered on the city of Sokoto in the
Hausa region, absorbing surrounding states and attempting to eliminate
pre-Islamic religious practices.
The arrival of the Portuguese in the 15th century, and the other
Europeans who followed, greatly stimulated the slave trade in West
Africa. Oyo, a Yoruba kingdom, and the Aro confederacy, led by an Igbo
group, became important slave-exporting states and dominated southern
Nigeria until the 19th century.
British Colonization
Amid instability associated with the expansion of Sokoto and the
collapse of Oyo in the early 19th century, Great Britain began to
combat slavery and foster the palm oil trade in the region. The British
annexed Lagos in 1861 as part of its antislavery efforts, and Christian
missionary activity increased. At the 1885 Congress of Berlin, the
European powers recognized Great Britain's claims to southern Nigeria.
Meanwhile, British businessman George Goldie built up a monopoly on
trade along the Niger River, and his enterprise was granted a charter
as the Royal Niger Company in 1886. In 1900, the company was replaced
by a system of protectorates that had first emerged in the south, and
within a few years British forces had conquered the Muslim states in
the north. This process was driven in part by competition from Germany
and France, which were also organizing colonial empires in West Africa.
The entire country was united as the Colony and Protectorate of
Nigeria, ruled by a British governor, in 1914. The British actively
co-opted and modified traditional governing institutions and created
new legislative bodies with limited power and representation. Nigerians
soon organized political parties to win further concessions.
Particularly after World War II, Great Britain gradually yielded
power and granted regional self-governance as part of a broader
decolonization process in Africa and around the world. Nationwide
elections were held in 1959, and a formal recognition of Nigerian
independence came on October 1, 1960. The following year, plebiscites
decided the fate of a strip of territory that had belonged to German
Cameroon prior to World War I; the German colony had been divided
between Great Britain and France as trust territories after that war.
The northern portion of the British strip voted to join Nigeria, while
the southern portion opted to join the former French trust territory,
the Federal Republic of Cameroon.
Independence Day Celebration in Nigeria |
The First Republic
Independent Nigeria's first constitution established a parliamentary
democracy, with a bicameral legislature consisting of the Senate and
the House of Representatives. Executive power was vested in a prime
minister, while a largely ceremonial governor general represented the
British monarch as head of state. In 1963, the governor general was
replaced with a president serving a similarly symbolic function, making
the country a republic. Each of Nigeria's three constituent units—the
Western, Eastern, and Northern regions—also had its own government and
premier.
The three main political parties at the time of independence were
(1) the Northern People's Congress (NPC), which represented the Muslim
Hausa and Fulani groups of the north; (2) the National Council of
Nigerian Citizens (NCNC), supported mostly by the substantially
Catholic Igbo in the southeast; and (3) the Action Group (AG), a
left-leaning party that drew strength from the Yoruba-dominated
southwest. The first postindependence government was formed by the NCNC
and NPC, while the AG was in opposition. The AG split in 1962, with a
conservative faction forming the new United People's Party (later
renamed the Nigerian National Democratic Party, or NNDP) and
cooperating with the government. After violence associated with the
schism broke out, the AG's leaders were arrested, and the conservative
faction gained power in the Western Region. A Midwestern Region was
carved out of the Western Region in 1963, and the NCNC won elections
there the next year. In national and Western Region elections
stretching from late 1964 through 1965, a new alliance led by the NPC
and NNDP took power at the expense of the NCNC and its smaller allies,
despite evidence of widespread voting fraud and manipulation. The
resulting riots caused hundreds of deaths.
Dictatorship and the Biafra Tragedy
In early 1966, ethnic Igbo military officers overthrew the NPC-NNDP
government, only to be replaced several months later when northern
military officers staged their own coup. They named Lieutenant Colonel
Yakubu Gowon, a Christian officer from a minority ethnic group, as
their leader. Thousands of Igbo were massacred in the north in the
second half of 1966, leading many to flee to the Igbo heartland in the
Eastern Region; northerners living there faced retaliatory violence,
driving them back to their own ethnic homelands. These developments led
to growing support for an independent Igbo republic. Gowon responded in
part by replacing the four regions with a system of 12 states, but the
military leader of the Eastern Region, Lieutenant Colonel Chukwuemeka
Odumegwu Ojukwu, declared it the Republic of Biafra (named for the
Bight of Biafra) in May 1967. Federal authorities retained control of
the rest of the country, as well as the Niger delta portion of the
defunct Eastern Region, which was populated by non-Igbo ethnic groups.
Biafra gained scant international recognition, and Nigeria blockaded
its territory. Federal forces finally crushed Biafran resistance in
early 1970; the war resulted in at least a million deaths from combat,
famine, and disease, making it one of the world's worst humanitarian
disasters. Ojukwu fled the country, and the rebel territory was
reabsorbed into Nigeria.
The Short-Lived Second Republic
After Gowon postponed plans to return Nigeria to civilian rule, he
was overthrown in a 1975 coup that installed General Murtala Muhammad,
who was in turn murdered in 1976. Muhammad's aide, the Christian and
Yoruba general Olusegun Obasanjo, succeeded him as military ruler.
Obasanjo oversaw the transition to democracy, including the convening
of a constituent assembly, the adoption of a new constitution in 1979,
and federal elections later that year. The constitution established a
presidential republic, replacing the parliamentary system of the First
Republic. A new civilian government took power after the voting, led by
Shehu Shagari of the mostly northern National Party of Nigeria (NPN).
But the elections of 1983 were marred by violence and indications of
massive vote rigging in favor of Shagari and the NPN, who had lost
popularity due to rampant corruption and economic decline. In December
1983, a coup ended the Second Republic, and 16 years of military rule
followed. Elections were held in 1993, but ruling general Ibrahim
Babangida annulled the results, leading to unrest that forced his
resignation. An interim civilian leader appointed to succeed him was
quickly ousted by General Sani Abacha, whose five-year rule took
Nigeria to new depths of repression, corruption, and illegality. The
democratic regime that would have resulted from the 1993 elections is
known as the Third Republic.
The Fourth Republic
In the face of severe crackdowns by the government, Nigerian civil
society struggled to organize in favor of a transition to civilian rule
and democracy. Opposition groups coalesced in the National Democratic
Coalition and worked with the trade union federation and environmental
groups to step up international pressure. When Abacha died suddenly in
June 1998, his successor, General Abdulsalam Abubakar, freed political
prisoners and implemented a new constitution based on that of 1979,
with a strong president and bicameral legislature. The federal
structure was retained, though the number of states had by this time
grown to 36. A timetable for elections was set, and three parties
competed first in local elections and then for control of parliament
and the presidency. Obasanjo of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) won
the latter by a large margin in February 1999. He won again in 2003
with 62 percent of the vote, defeating Muhammadu Buhari, the candidate
of the northern All Nigeria People's Party. The PDP was also victorious
in the legislative elections, gaining 223 of the 360 seats in the House
of Representatives and 76 out of 109 seats in the Senate. Opposition
presidential candidates filed a petition to annul the elections due to
fraud, but this was rejected by the Supreme Court in 2005.
Obasanjo took a number of steps to lead Nigeria in the direction of
a stable democracy with a free-market economy. Many freedoms denied
under the dictatorship have been restored, and Nigeria has a thriving
press and nongovernmental sector. In 2006, Nigeria became the first
African country to fully repay its debt to the Paris Club of creditor
nations following an agreed-upon rescheduling and relief package. And
Obasanjo set Nigeria's foreign policy in support of democracy and
peacekeeping, including recent assistance for peace efforts in Sudan's
Darfur region. However, despite respect for his achievements, Obasanjo
is widely criticized for allowing serious economic, environmental,
ethnic, and religious problems to grow and for rigging the 2007
presidential election in favor of the PDP candidate, Umaru Yar'Adua.
(The parliament had earlier rejected an attempt by Obasanjo's
supporters to push through a constitutional amendment that would have
allowed him to seek a third term.) Furthermore, since Obasanjo took
power in 1999, 12 states have adopted new Sharia (Islamic law)
statutes, worsening ethnic and religious friction. Police services and
army units commit human rights abuses with impunity. Oil poaching in
the Niger delta, including by delta separatists, has created an
environmental disaster of enormous proportions, and explosions
resulting from the problem have killed thousands. Despite efforts to
curb corruption, it remains endemic; Nigeria was ranked 147 out of 179
countries surveyed in Transparency International's 2007 Corruption
Perceptions Index.
Freedom of Religion
Top government officials claim that Nigeria, a highly diverse
society, observes freedom of religion, but both the constitution and
state practices raise considerable doubts about this assertion.
Before Independence: A History of State Religion
As noted above, Nigeria has a long history of state-imposed
religion. Kingdoms based on indigenous beliefs often fused the roles of
religious and temporal leader and imposed the state's religion on its
subjects. The spread of Islam in the north, especially after the 10th
century, also combined aspects of religion and governance. At the
beginning of the 19th century, an ethnic Fulani Muslim scholar, Usman
dan Fodio, organized an army to conquer the Hausa states and took over
much of northern Nigeria. He imposed Sharia and exercised loose control
over surrounding emirates in what was called the Sokoto caliphate
(noted above), which remained intact until the British imposed colonial
control in military campaigns after 1900. But under the British
practice of indirect rule, Sharia and other local customs and
institutions were built into the governing system; while corporal
punishments were permitted, colonial officials prohibited more severe
Sharia penalties like death by stoning and amputations. In the south,
the British supported Christian missionary work to provide schooling
and other social services, which continued after independence. This
reflected a general colonial policy that left the remote north
relatively undeveloped, thus contributing to significant social
disparities.
...under
the British practice of indirect rule, Sharia and other local customs
and institutions were built into the governing system; while corporal
punishments were permitted, colonial officials prohibited more severe
Sharia penalties like death by stoning and
amputations. |
Freedom of Religion After Independence
At the outset of independence, the constitution incorporated the
principle of separation of religion and state to some extent and
declared the religious freedom of both individuals and communities.
This was important given Nigeria's mixed population. While ethnic and
religious groups dominated certain areas, there had been substantial
internal migration during the period of British rule. The largest city
and the capital at independence, Lagos, included members of all
segments of Nigerian society. (The capital was moved to Abuja, in the
center of the country, in 1991.) Freedom of religion, however, was
often violated in practice during the early independence years, with
widespread discrimination based on religion in state employment and
investment.
After the 1967–70 war with Biafra, the federal military government
took over mission schools and expelled foreign missionaries, who had
been viewed as supporters of separatism among the mostly Catholic Igbo.
In 1975, a government Pilgrim Board was established to oversee the
Muslim pilgrimage, or hajj, violating state noninterference in
religious practices. Meanwhile, many northern Muslim leaders advocated
a greater role for Sharia, which had largely been confined to civil
matters among Muslims, such as divorce and inheritance disputes, since
independence.
Nigeria's successive military governments were most often concerned
with maintaining order and did not attempt to radically expand or
abolish Sharia. However, Babangida, a Muslim, made the country a full
member of the international Organization of the Islamic Conference in
1986, sparking riots by those who objected to the implication that
Nigeria was a Muslim nation.
The Constitution: Striking a Balance?
The 1999 constitution, like the charters that preceded it, was
adopted only after debate on the issue of religion. Some Muslim leaders
sought a prominent position for Sharia, while other Nigerians argued
for a purely secular state. The result was a compromise that
essentially left the existing arrangement intact. The constitution's
Section 10 states clearly, "The Government of the Federation or of a
State shall not adopt any religion as State Religion." But under
Nigeria's federal system, the constitution allows individual states to
establish their own courts for matters not covered by federal law, and
Sections 275–279 allow states to establishment their own Sharia courts
of appeal for civil matters. Another provision, Section 38, has been
subject to differing interpretations. It states that "every person
shall be entitled to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion…and
freedom…to manifest and propagate his religion or belief in worship,
teaching, practice and observance." Advocates of a more robust Sharia
claim that it is integral to Islamic "worship, teaching, practice, and
observance" and therefore should be allowed under this clause. Many
Christians and secularists argue that official, institutionalized
Sharia violates their freedom of religion and the separation of
religion and state.
Reintroducing Sharia
After the restoration of civilian rule in 1999, Sharia advocates
began to assert themselves at the state level. In 2000, Ahmed Sani,
governor of Zamfara state in the northwest, oversaw the implementation
of a new law that extended Sharia to criminal matters. President
Obasanjo did not challenge the move, and 11 other northern states
followed suit by adopting some form of Sharia criminal code. As noted
above, the practice of Sharia is not new in Nigeria, and even in its
latest form it applies only to Muslims. However, its recent expansion
has exacerbated friction between religious groups, which in some cases
has broken out into communal violence, killing hundreds of people.
| In
Nigeria, there is also variation in how Sharia is interpreted and
applied from state to state and among the individual courts, partly
because the new criminal system was erected so quickly. |
Neither Sharia nor Islam itself is uniform across the Muslim world.
The faith has two main branches, Sunni and Shia. Within Sunni Islam,
practiced by most of the world's Muslims, there are four major schools
of Sharia jurisprudence that developed around the turn of the first
millennium. In Nigeria, the Maliki school is dominant. It is considered
a more flexible variant than others, but all four schools adhere, at
least on some level, to the punishments for major crimes described in
the Koran or the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, including death by
stoning for adultery and amputation for theft. Flexibility arises from
the standards of proof involved and the particular circumstances of a
crime; a thief who steals out of dire need may receive leniency, for
example. In Nigeria, there is also variation in how Sharia is
interpreted and applied from state to state and among the individual
courts, partly because the new criminal system was erected so quickly.
Furthermore, defendants retain their right to appeal to the federal
courts. There have been at least two cases of women being sentenced to
death by stoning for extramarital sex, but the sentences were
overturned on appeal.
By allowing religion to intrude on a core state function like
criminal justice, the government has further blurred the lines between
religion and state, compromising the integrity of both. The arrangement
also perpetuates the existence of parallel legal systems for different
religious and ethnic groups, a divisive legacy of British colonial
rule, and the often arbitrary nature of Sharia judgments raises
additional questions about due process. While it is not uncommon in
predominantly Muslim countries for Sharia courts to adjudicate civil or
family disputes, or for Islamic principles to be woven into the larger
legal system, it remains unclear whether a politically, ethnically, and
religiously fragmented country like Nigeria can survive the internal
contradictions presented by official Sharia institutions.
|
Introduction
General Resources
