A Professor of Islamic Eschatology and human rights activist, Ishaq Akintola has decried the negative effects of religions in the country, saying it has done more harm than good in Nigeria.
Delivering the convocation lecture of the Al-Hikmah University, Ilorin, entitled: ‘Acrobatic Religiosity and Paradoxical Criminality: Who Did This To Nigeria?’, the university don said religions have led to hate speeches, denial, deprivation, poverty, ignorance, disease and outright killing, maiming and destruction of properties.
According to him, instead of offering positive life-moulding counsel, religious clerics have become harbingers of ritual killing and cannibalism and money has become ‘the dot in the com’, not God, not Allah.
While noting that Nigeria is a complex society, Akintola, who is also the President, Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), said that the country was riddled with crime which religious values have not been able to curb by half.
“The country’s acrobatic religiosity led it to paradoxical criminality. Nigerians spend more time in worshipping and praise-singing than they do on working and moving the economy of their country forward.
“For failing to promote harmony among themselves, Nigerians appear to have missed the essence of religion, whose etymological root in various languages of the world implies linkage, bondage, tying or binding together,” he said.
Akintola, who is from the Department of Religious and Peace Studies, Lagos State University, Ojo, noted that in view of the fact that the security agencies were overwhelmed, Nigerian churches and mosques must rise to the challenge of crime prevention by providing timely counseling to their congregations.
According to him, this is one of the cardinal roles of places of worship.
He said that sandwiched between fanatical Christians and extremist Muslims whose only common denominator was paradoxical criminality, Nigeria stands on a dangerous precipice.
“Who did this to Nigeria? Is it God or Allah? Is it the church or the mosque? Or is it Nigerians themselves? Posterity will provide the answer,” he said.
He therefore urged Nigerians to learn the golden lessons in the dignity of labour and desist from chasing easy money.
