Home / Faith / OPINION: The Jos Mosque-Church Example by Okechukwu Emeh, Jr

OPINION: The Jos Mosque-Church Example by Okechukwu Emeh, Jr

It is an indisputable fact that religion plays a central role in human affairs. Apart from being a veritable means of worshipping, praising and adoring God as our Creator and the overall sovereign of the whole universe in order to gain salvation and the implicit eternal life, it also provides us with the great opportunity to nurture and strengthen our spirituality, morality and core values for a good society.
Despite the virtues of religion, it is a bitter irony that it is a major source of division that often results in mayhem, murder and destruction on a grand scale across the world. On this score, Desmond Morris, a British anthropologist, notes in his 1977 book Manwatching that this system of faith is a “cultural isolating mechanism because it demands social separation from those who worship in a different manner. It creates sects and breeds sectarian violence”. Evidently, religion is behind most of the violence, bloodshed and depredation in the post-Cold War world, just as warp nationalism. From the trouble spots like the Middle East (Palestine/ Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen) to South Asia (India and Pakistan) through Central Asia (Afghanistan), Caucasus (Russia’s Chechnya) and Africa (Nigeria, Algeria, Egypt, Somalia, Sudan, Mali and Kenya), it has been a recurring decimal of hatred, strife and terrorism associated with religious intolerance and fanaticism. This is not to mention international religious terrorism unleashed in the name of some “righteous” cause by armed barbaric groups like al-Qaeda and Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
In Nigeria, plural communities with both Muslim and Christian inhabitants like Jos, Kaduna and Bauchi have become a metaphor for on-and-off-and on again violent clashes that often claim many lives and properties in recent years. Aggravating the crisis driven by faith factor in the country are the years of religious bigotry and extremism that have given birth to a fringe group known as Boko Haram, which has been fighting to establish an Islamic state with heinous and dastardly terror campaign of bombings and shootings that have killed thousands of people and caused massive internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees, particularly in the northeast states of Bornu, Yobe and Adamawa, since 2009.
In fact, the challenge of religious intolerance and radicalism in Nigeria today is so dire that the problem, alongside ethnic nationalism, is identified by both local and foreign analysts as the foremost contributing factor to division, hatred, resentment and violent conflict that could dismember the federation if urgent actions are not taken to arrest it. Not helping matters in our somehow religious quandary are the accompanying slurs, sentiments and prejudice that have coloured a whole gamut of our inter-personal relationships, including politics, governance, economy, business, education and nuptial affairs. With such evil side of religion that reeks of holy hatred, one does not need a Marxist to know that it is the opium of the people or a kind of spiritual vodka that could cloud one’s rationality or sense of judgment, especially when channelled towards distortion, bigotry, extremism and heresy.
And now you wonder what all the foregoing has to do with this write up. Is it about the jeremiad tales of incessant religious upheaval in the Jos plateau? No, it is about a thought-provoking and inspiring story on page 10 of Daily Trust of May 30, 2015, entitled “Jos Street where Mosque, Church stand side-by-side”. The story has it that in a place called Adebayo Street, near Terminus Central Market, in the city of Jos, a mosque run by Nurudeen Muslim Society of Nigeria is existing on the same plot of land with a church named First Baptist Church, with members of both faiths completely at peace with each other. While narrating the history of their mutual religious understanding, the leaders of the mosque and church in question revealed that their ancestors were traders who migrated to Jos from Ogbomosho, Oyo State, in 1911. According to them, in the course of looking for a place of worship, a wealthy man called Adebayo (hence the name Adebayo Street) from Abeokuta gave them the land where the mosque and church were built about 60 years ago free of charge, though the two worship centres with a dwarf fence separating them have been refurbished and upgraded in the recent past.
On the secret behind the amazing peaceful coexistence between the two different faiths in Adebayo Street of Jos, Alhaji Aliyu Juma, an iman with the mosque who also doubles as the Chairman of Nurudeen Society of Nigeria, Plateau State branch, discloses that the worshippers are from the same root (Ogbomosho). He adds that their great grandfathers and grandfathers ate, played and worshipped together, as well as taught their children history of their origin, stressing that such bonds have enabled the members of the Jos mosque-church to imbibe the spirit of unity. For Deacon Amao, an Elder with the church, if there is any misunderstanding between worshippers from the two religious organisations, they always resolve it amicably through dialogue. He further states that whenever Muslims have an event, they would notify their Christian neighbours through invitation and same applies to the Christians. Corroborating this, Alhaji Juma says they invite each other to various events that take place in both worship houses like seasonal festivities and weddings. He notes that the two religious groups help each other when the need arises, emphasising that when they organise special events that require crowd control, they use their security personnel to help them by securing the area and making sure everything goes smoothly and the same is reciprocated by their Christian counterparts. According to Deacon Amao, even parking space is shared by the members of the two religious faiths.
Remarkably, the congenial atmosphere of peace, harmony, forbearance, cordiality and cooperation between the Adebayo Street mosque and church neighbours has attracted the keen interest of government officials, religious bodies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) into conflict resolution and peace-building who are reported to have visited them to find out what underpins their incredible feat. This is a no mean feat in Jos, where Christians and Muslims have paid terrible price of frequent massive loss of lives and proprerties, as well as balkanisation of the mining city across sectional fault lines, especially since 2011, because of their inability to live in peace and harmony as neighbours. To the great and inspirational Muslim and Christian worshippers in the said Adebayo Street, the magic for their inter-faith understanding lies in peaceful coexistence, dialogue, forbearance, cooperation and support.
What a fine example for different religious organisations in conflict-stricken areas divided and polarised by frequent communal turmoil like Jos, Kaduna, Bauchi and Gombe. Accordingly, Muslims and Christians in Nigeria are enjoined to live in peace and harmony, regardless of all odds. In this connection, worshippers from different parts of the country, particularly those in the north, have one supreme lesson from Yoruba people of South-West: their religious tolerance amid diverse faiths. Incidentally, the worshippers at the Jos mosque-church are from that geo-political zone.
It is important that adherents of three principal religions of Christianity, Islam and Traditionalist in Nigeria should recognise that they are intrinsically bonded by the belief in one God, who is all-doing, all-present and all-knowing. In particular, both Christianity, which is fashioned after the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, and Islam, which has been the experiential and intuitional footprints of Prophet Moahmmed, are the offshoots of Abrahamaic faith, in the same way with Judaism. So, as worshippers of the Supreme Being, we should strive to glory Him by internalising divine qualities like love, kindness, benevolence and compassion, which transcend religious affiliations. This is apart from the very essence of worshipping Him in spirit and truth as a worthy means of fostering spiritual, moral and ethical renewal in our society. It is also pertinent to note that no true religion fights, kills, maims or destroys in the name of God, which justifies the need for us to rebuild our attitudes towards each other by exuding faith without prejudice with a view to guarding against hate, intolerance and zealotry that are at the core of sectarian strife and dissention in Nigeria. And we should shun the we versus them mentality that always buoys suspicion, distrust and hostility among our different faiths, which, more often than not, is contrived by unscrupulous individuals for political, personal or sectional gain. After all, in our quest for individual well-being, we do not mind whether our helpers like doctors/health care providers, blood donors and emergency responders are either Christians or Muslims, or southerners or northerners.
In view of the exemplary feat of the Adebayo Street Muslim and Christian worshippers of Jos in promoting peaceful coexistence between faiths, it is expected that such a reassuring development would rub on various parts of Nigeria bedevilled by frequent horrific communal turbulence. Therefore, let this notable example be trumpeted from the hilltop of Jos and reverberated through its mutually antagonistic ethno-religious groups. May the spirit of the Adebayo Street mosque-church pervade and dissolve the thick fog of inter-religious intolerance and hostility in other hot spots like Kaduna, Bauchi, Bornu, Yobe, Adamawa, Taraba and Gombe. May it reign in the whole of Nigeria for unfolding of a nation-state marked by love, peace, tranquility and value for human life. And now a prayer: Dear Almighty Father, as the only guarantor of perpetual peace, may You help us heal our longstanding communal rifts. Make us understand our differences in order to use them to engender mutual tolerance, respect, forbearance, sympathy, empathy, dialogue, reconciliation and healing in our embattled fatherland. By virtue of Your creation, we acknowledge that You are the originator of all races, ethnic nationalities and cultures and, thus, in all nations of the world, You accept only those who worship You in spirit and truth as Your chosen people. So, the Lord of lords, we earnestly ask that You make us strengthen our resolve to pull down the divisive wall of ethnic, religious, cultural and regional particularism and the attendant prejudice, dissemination, animosity, violence, bloodshed, destruction and revenge attacks. Please help us to recognise our common humanity, because all humanity is one and undivided and indivisible family, irrespective of race, ethnicity, culture or creed. Abba Father, make us understand that our differences as a people may matter but our shared humanity matters most. And let Boko haram militants know that their long-running consummate inhumanity through unnecessary bloodshed and destruction does not represent the face of Islam, as reflected in the quest for a compassionate and just society, so that they would cease armed hostility and seek dialogue with the promising new administration of President Muhammadu Buhari. Amen!
Finally, as a vehicle for information dissemination, agenda-setting and public advocacy, the media in Nigeria should make a positive contribution to the Herculean task of building sincere bridges of communal understanding in our deeply divided national society. Apart from championing multiculturalism, this would require using its various mass communication platforms (including radio, television, newspaper and magazine) to highlight ties that are supposed to bind Nigerians like an umbilical cord. These include monotheism (the belief that there is only one God), universal brotherhood of man, same African consanguinity, shared colonial history, Nigerian brotherhood and common national challenges. Expectedly, the interesting story of Jos mosque-church peaceful coexistence is a kind of news report the Nigerian media and the public alike would cherish and celebrate – not the sickening ones of violence, bloodletting, destruction and human division.
• Emeh, a social researcher, sent this piece from Abuja.
okemehjr@yahoo.com
08036895746

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