Religion: Continues to Bleed Nigeria Dry

By Terhemba Osuji

Religion has always been a complicated subject to talk about in the court of public opinion as people hold firmly to core beliefs passed on from generations of pious believers without questioning the basis for their fate.

In fact, questioning the basis of a particular fate could get you killed.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in Nigeria were the country made up of 250 tribes is splintered and unified into the camps of Christianity, Islam and animists religions.

Before the arrival of colonialists, Nigeria's many tribes practiced their religions in peace until colonialists arrived from the sea with the bible and from the desert plains with the Koran, bringing with it, politics and conflicting ideologies and mindsets that has made nation building enormously difficult as each group views each other with mutual suspicion akin to hate.

It is little wonder that more advanced civilizations are moving towards the separation of church and state for the following reason:

"When the government puts its imprimatur on a particular religion it conveys a message of exclusion to all those who do not adhere to the favored beliefs. A government cannot be premised on the belief that all persons are created equal when it asserts that God prefers some." - Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun. 

Even the most stout defenders of merging the church or Islam with they state and especially in emerging democracies gaining civil liberties get stumped by the logical argument:

"You don't believe in Separation of Church and State? Well, since you want your church to tell the government how to govern, does that mean the government can come into your church and tell you how to worship? Separation is for the protection of both." - Zoe Anadon

You could spend a lifetime debating the merits or demerits of that policy of separation without reaching a mid-point in Nigeria today but the Nigerian economy which all religions are living under is experiencing the harshest brunt of economic deprivation from mixing religion and economics.

Which brings us to Nigeria's present economic predicament and downtrodden economy. The president, Buhari, a die hard advocate for maintaining a strong Naira was forced to cave in to pressure and authorize a free floating exchange rate that has seen the Naira not supported by strong fundamentals tumble before the dollar.

Nigeria is also experiencing a foreign exchange crunch as it lacks the Dollars it needs to support its import and services based economy. It has resorted to mixing fixed exchange rates with pegging rates for certain services. 

The scarcity of dollars even forced the government to remove any subsidies on the provision or pegging of favorable rates for students seeking FX to fund their education overseas. However the govt balanced it priorities by Presently allocating

N308 to $1 to import fuel

N400 to $1 to import rice

Both wise rationing policies as the government aims to reduce fuel scarcity and encourage domestic production of rice.

In a seemingly unrelated event many months earlier the President Buhari. declared:

" There will be no more Federal Government delegation to Mecca. Religion is a personal affair. If you want to visit Mecca or Jerusalem, do it with your personal funds. Sponsorship of religious pilgrimages is illegal, unconstitutional, and lacks fairness......"

But On the other hand Nigeria's relentless religious citizens, despite the hardships and dollar scarcity, still are determined to fulfill their religious obligations and perform their pilgrimages to Jerusalem and Mecca quietly applied pressure to suit their goals.

On August 4, the government made a mockery of its pegging regime, lost its objectivity and tossed out months of gains or pains out the door by directing its central bank to sell dollars to Muslim pilgrims going to Mecca at the rate of N197 to a $1 for the purchase of a minimum of $750 and a maximum of $1000 in an exchange rate system that is rife with fraud from a confusing mix of policies and fraudulent institutional arbitrage.

This coming on the heels of the recent advisory of The Central Bank of Nigeria tha Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora to beware of the activities of some unlicensed International Money Transfer Operators. The same statement also ordered these unlicensed remitters to ensure that remittances are deposited in the banking system in trying to combat fraud and preserve the amount of dollars in supply.

No one has calculated the amount of damage the economy has suffered or the opportunity costs lost from misapplying scarce resources away from sustaining policy objectives of reducing fuel scarcity, encouraging rice production and a hoard of other activities outrightly denied forex in favor of pilgrimages.

As economists rise in outrage about these policy somersaults the run into religious defenders comments like " where were you when Christians were granted waivers" perhaps referring to similar incentives offered during the regime of immediate past Christian president Jonathan.

It is not beyond the realm of possibility to imagine that to maintain fairness due to public outcry of discrimination that this administration will be compelled to offer a similar and reduced exchange rate to Christians when it is time to go to Jerusalem.

And we wonder why the Naira is almost exchanging at N400 to $1.

It is indeed sad and there is no escaping the fact that countries that are driven by clear policies free of divisive religious fundamentalism are raking in the dough while Nigeria and the third world bleed away its commonwealth in holy places that do not give you an in your hand return on your investment.

It is time for Nigeria to get its priorities right.