MOVING BEYOND RELIGIOUS FANATICISM: A CALL FOR PEACE

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An incident which occurred some days ago at the Shehu Shagari College of Education (SSCOE) Sokoto, an institution which has been in session because they were not among the receptors of the “Nigeria’s valentine’s gift” to her youths, cast a fresh doubt on why the strike should even be called off. The incident which resulted in the beating, stoning and subsequent setting ablaze of Ms. Deborah Yakubu was reported to be an aftermath of a post she made in their departmental WhatsApp group in which she vehemently opposed the use of the platform for other reasons besides academic purposes. This post of hers however, infuriated her Muslim counterparts who tagged her speech as blasphemous (against Prophet Mohammed). This action or speech of hers was tantamount to death as all infidels who blasphemes Prophet Mohammed should die according to the Islamic law. A set, receiving education and of course, are expected to have been freed from the shackles of religious mental slavery.

Many have taking to their social media handles, clamouring for justice to be given Ms. Deborah Yakubu, Bashir Ahmed; a Nigerian writer and journalist (the Special Adviser to the Presidency on new media) also took to his Twitter handle, stating that he's in support of the killing of Ms. Deborah because in his belief, the penalty for blasphemy is death. Thereby prioritising religious belief over morality and ethics and common good. This incident poses a very big challenge to us and calls for a rethinking on how far we have been influenced by tribal, religious and political sentiments. In the immediate past gubernatorial election two brothers who belonged to different parties fought very hard and one was badly injured because of issues and arguments on which political party was better and should be voted for. Intra-religiously, we often hear of incidents where members of different churches fight on the bases of religious disagreement. The inter-religious aspect is a no-go area because some religious extremists are ready to even kill in defense of their religious belief. Showing that so far, the initial goal and purpose of education, to a greater extent has not been achieved.

“If you're emotionally attached to your tribe, religion or political leaning to the point that truth and justice become secondary considerations, your education is useless. Your exposure is useless. If you cannot reason beyond petty sentiments, you're a liability to mankind.” - Dr. Chuba Okadigbo (Late).

Formal education as we have it today was brought to us by the colonial masters and the missionaries with the major aim of liberating us from timidity and myopic thinking. Paulo Freire distinguishes two major kinds of education; Banking system of education and Liberative system of education in his work titled; “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”.
In the Banking system of education, he opines that it is a system in which the students are only seen as passive spectators and receptacles in the process of education. Here they are more like an empty container which should be filled with the waters of knowledge. The student is seen as having no knowledge of his own (tabular rasa) and as such plays no part in the learning process.
The second is the Liberative system of education which is similar to the Socratic-Platonic conception of knowledge as remembrance of the already existing/inbuilt knowledge. Here the student is only guided to construct knowledge because he/she already possesses this knowledge and need only to be assisted in recalling the innate ideas which are already inborn in him. The student, in this system of education shows ingenuity and originality. The student is trained in a way in which he/she rises above tribal, religious and societal sentiments (Rising above Bacon’s idols) because he/she is not just being fed with the knowledge and ideas already constructed by authorities, scholars and elites of his/her society but is allowed to experience the world from his own perspective and can, if he/she desires, share this experiences (knowledge), through feelings. Paulo Freire however, goes further to assert that the Liberative system of education is the best system of education which any society, hungry for development can adopt.

My reason for highlighting this Freire’s view is considering the intimidating number of educational institutions ranging from primary, secondary and tertiary institutions found in Nigeria. An external observer would ordinarily expect that a country with such enormous number of educational institutions, graduates, undergraduates and elites should have surmounted every atom of idiosyncrasy and irrational behaviour, influenced and propelled by what Francis Bacon would call “The Idol of the Theatre”. However, the opposite seems to be the case as the recent happenstances show scenarios of domestic violence where a husband, who, the many years of academic exposure should have made to understand that the wife is a partner and mate, beats her to death. Scenarios where the “Leaders of tomorrow” are sent home on account of unpaid salaries of their educators and professors while those vying to be “Leaders of today” pay a whopping sum of money just to indicate interest.

Then the issue I am trying to raise in the consciousness of my dear readers is; “to what extent have your long years of intellectual acquisition influenced you?” Do you still hold so tenaciously to the superiority of your tribe, religion or political view that you feel very bittered when these views of yours are opposed? Has your level of intellectuality and academic prowess made you to accept the Socratic “docta ignorancia” and know that Aristotle was right when he said that knowledge was like the proverbial door which no one completely gets hold of and which also, completely eludes no one and thus, come to the acknowledge the fact that one starts dying when they stop learning and as such be open to accept the views of others.

I pray for the peaceful repose of the soul of Ms. Deborah Yakubu who was murdered in cold blood as a result of religious idiosyncrasy. I join my voice with that of the people of just will who are out to see that Deborah gets the justice she deserves. As I also encourage you, my fellow blurtians to allow yourself to be liberated by education and subsequently conquer tribal, religious and political extremism.