Mubarak Bala and the hypocrisy of Nigeria’s “religious freedom”

“Every person shall be entitled to assemble freely and associate with other persons, and in particular he may form or belong to any political party, trade union or any association for the protection of his interests.”

Section 40 of Nigeria’s 1999 constitution contains the above statement in all its doe-eyed, well-intentioned finery. It sits incongruously alongside provisions for Sharia courts, which implicitly violate the principle of freedom of association – even though nobody seems to pick up on the fundamental contradiction therein. Despite the fact that tons of anecdotal evidence primarily from northern Nigeria indicates that “religious freedom” is more of an ideal than a fact in Nigeria, it is easy to walk around in Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja and not know this.

Every so often however, something happens to jolt the more urbane, cosmopolitan parts of Nigeria out of their comfortable reverie. Sometimes it is a religious riot in Kano, or Kaduna, or Jos or Bauchi. Sometimes it is the spectacle of legitimate alcoholic merchandise being burnt by “Hisbah” police who mistake their personal religious beliefs for public policy. In 2020, it was the incarceration of Mubarak Bala, a Nigerian humanist on the orders of his father. His offense? Exercising his constitutional right apparently.

Freedom of religion also means freedom “from” religion

A somewhat hilarious aspect of the conversation around religion and faith in Nigeria is that while the major religions often absolutely hate each other, they have an amazing ability to organise into temporary alliances to fight against the group of people they all agree are the spawn of the devil himself – atheists, agnostics and humanists. Outside of football, nothing unites a Nigerian Christian and a Nigerian Muslim more reliably than a shared revulsion or fear of the Big Bad Atheists.

While atheism is by definition not a religion or a faith but merely the absence of such things – it is often completely lost on Nigerians who profess different faiths that “Freedom of Religion” also covers irreligion. In other words, someone’s freedom to convert from one creed to another, as far as the law is concerned is the exact same thing as somebody’s freedom to renounce a faith without replacing it, or to renounce the entire concept of god and faith itself.

The fact is after all, that if one is Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jainist, Budhist and whatever else falls in between, one is already “atheist” toward every other god or religion in existence but one’s own. Atheism merely stretches this to a longer frame of reference by eliminating the single deity one is expected to be loyal to, and rejecting all dogmatic belief in lieu of scientific evidence.

Most important to the Nigerian context, it must be stressed that the decision to switch from a religion to nothingness is covered by the 1999 constitution. Under that document, Mubarak Bala’s decision to “decamp” from Islam and become a well-known secular voice in a neighbouring state was valid and permitted. However his dad – a dyed in the wool conservative Muslim – wants no part of such ideals and has repeatedly said so, which is where the story takes a severe left turn.

One man’s “religion” is another man’s blasphemy

Since finding himself at Kano prison on the orders of his domineering father, having been raised a Muslim, Mubarak’s father argues he cannot possibly exercise his constitutional right to freedom of association by converting from Islam to Atheism. What kind of [expletive redacted] would dare to suggest that Allah is not everything that his father said it was? And this goes right to the heart of the problem with Nigerian theists.

Many Nigerians are unaware of the fact that there is probably a god and an entire faith built around Guru Maharaji on Lagos-Ibadan expressway. Who are you to say that Christianity is preferable to him? Or Islam? You simply cannot make those decisions on behalf of others because what is normal and acceptable in one’s own religion might be sacrilegious, blasphemous nonsense in another. Jesus in the Christian faith for example, is the ultimate prophet and centrepiece of the faith but in Islam, Jesus (Isa) is only a minor profit.

In other words, real religious freedom in Nigeria will come when Nigerians finally understood that religion at its foundational, elementary level as we know it, is essentially the very compelling story superstructure of long dead people.

For heaven’s sake, please free Mubarak Bala to live his wonderful, useful, productive atheist life.