Opinion
Ex-cellence Project And Psycho-social Support For Non-Religious Ex-clerics In Africa
Published
2 years agoon
By Leo Igwe
The Ex-cellence Project is an initiative that provides psycho-social support to ex-clerics who are non-religious in Africa. In the spectrum of irreligious demographics, former clerics are often ignored. While it is challenging for non-clerical religious persons to abandon religion, it is far more difficult for ex-clerics, that is, former religious workers such as former bishops, priests, pastors, nuns, monks, hermits, former Sunday school and catechism teachers, former preachers and evangelists, former Imams, sheiks, ulamas, former Quranic and theology school teachers to go open and public with their religious unbelief. Very often, those who exit, or are exited from clerical training: from seminaries, theology, and Islamic schools are unable to socially reintegrate due to stigma, and antagonism that irreligious sentiments elicit.
In my case, my exit from seminary and religion has been a challenging experience. For many years I felt lonely and alone. I joined the Catholic seminary at the age of 12. At different seminaries, I studied for my high school, did a degree in philosophy and spent some months studying theology before I voluntarily left the program. Leaving the priestly training was not an easy decision. It took me some years to finally make up my mind because I wanted to be sure that I was making the right decision. I waited until the time that I could cope with the negative reactions and pressures from the local Catholic and religious public. I wanted to be in the mental and emotional position to manage what people would say or do in response to my withdrawal and non-belief.
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For instance, on the day that I went to notify my bishop, Rev Chikwe, about my decision to discontinue the training, which was in January 1994, I met his secretary. The secretary asked me what I was doing at the secretariat the day that the seminary resumed. I told him that I wanted to withdraw from the program. He exclaimed: “Ihitteafoukwu again”. I was not moved. Ihitteafoukwu is the name of my local parish. He made this exclamation because my community was known for producing many ex-seminarians. A popular (for the local church, notorious) ex-priest, Bede Onuoha, comes from my area. More importantly, it was not long after another colleague also from my village withdrew from the program. The secretary allowed me to meet with the bishop. I concluded my withdrawal formalities. I told the bishop that I wanted to go and think about the priestly job. He agreed and let me go.
I felt relieved, very relieved on leaving his office. But I had to cope with the negative reactions and how to normalize my life. My godfather, a Catholic priest, did not take kindly my decision. He had been supporting my training and was unhappy that I did not consult him before making up my mind. He asked me to go and pray over it and gave me some Psalms to recite. I did not pray over anything. I left the prayer books in my house at the village and left for Ibadan where I have been living since then. When I informed my former teacher at the seminary where I studied philosophy, he stared at me for a while, sighed, and said: “Ok, Leo, but that is a huge loss”. He made this remark after he tried persuading me to change my mind. Many people felt disappointed on hearing that I had withdrawn from the priestly training. More disappointed when I told them that I had ditched religion
Meanwhile, I never signed any contract with anyone that I must be a priest. I was twelve years when my mother asked me to do the entrance examination. I did it and passed. That was how my priestly training started. I taught at a minor seminary for two years and many of my ex-students are priests or intensely religious “lay” persons. Whenever I meet my former students, some never fail to impress on me their disappointment especially on hearing about my irreligious views and positions. Some have said to me on many occasions that I moved from one extreme to another extreme. Did I?
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There was this incident that I would never forget. It happened many years ago. I was in a public bus traveling to Mbaise in Imo state. I got into a discussion with a woman sitting beside me. At some point, she mentioned the name of her village and I told her that I had lived and worked there as a Catholic seminarian. Then I added that I later left the priestly training. Another woman who was not part of the discussion, on hearing this sighed loudly, and said: “My son, I wish they would take two other persons to fill that gap that you created by leaving the program”. I stared at her and kept calm. Meanwhile, this woman was not a nun. From what I observed, she was married and had a family. Look, I never told her I was an atheist and did not believe in God. I wonder how she could have reacted if I did so.
The social opprobrium that goes with resigning from clerical jobs is overwhelming. Many clerics find it difficult to bear. So religious professionals are reluctant to leave the job even when they have lost their faith. They fear losing the religious social capital. Those who manage to leave the job and religion seldom speak out or openly express their positions or propositions. According to a Zimbabwean colleague, non-religious ex-clerics are seen as confused, cursed, and unfocused. Many are reluctant to say their mind because they could be accused of doublespeak, hypocrisy and deceit.
Nothing illustrates this better than an exchange between a Nigerian colleague who is an ex-Catholic priest and a Facebook user. This Nigerian colleague posted a comment on his wall. He said: “The primary characteristic of all living things is death. When I die, I will neither rest in heaven (Save your RIP. I don’t need it.), nor burn in any hell. I will simply decompose beneath or on the surface of the earth. My oil becomes fossil fuel to generate heat and energy for those who are alive. My protein becomes nutrients for the tree roots and microbes. My bones will mix with the calcium of the earth. My death won’t be a loss but an intimate reunion with nature. The oblivious unconsciousness that I enjoyed before birth shall forever be my portion after death. And so shall it be for all mortals, your superstitious consolations notwithstanding. And in response someone commented: “Chief, I will sue you for deceiving me during my early days”. This person must be one of those he preached to while he was a priest. And in his reply, the ex-priest said:
“You mean deceived (sic) with the same deception that I was equally deceived? I don’t think it’s about deception. I think it’s about ignorance and the inner strength to conquer ignorance. If you think critically as I do this day without depending lazily on just what you were told as I depended before, you will reach and possibly exceed where I am today. Keep trying fellow enquirer”. Not every former member of the clergy would like to share irreligious posts on social media.
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Due to hostile reactions like this, many former clerics, or religious workers cannot go open and public with their irreligious views and opinions. Sometimes these negative reactions and treatment emanate from the family. Religious relatives denounce non-believing members as demonic and satanic. Incidentally, my parents were supportive and did not oppose my decision to leave the priestly training. They were concerned over my non-religious views and activism, especially its impact on my social and political prospects. Other relatives have covertly and overtly been hostile towards me. One of them told me that for saying that there was no god and going about saying so, I would burn in the hottest part of Hell.
Look, is there any evidence of Hell somewhere hot or cold? No. Many people who resign from clerical jobs or training, and go open with their irreligious views suffer physical and psychological abuse and live with the trauma for the rest of their lives. Those who exit or are exited from the religious work or training are treated as social outcasts and misfits. Due to the stigma attached to leaving the clergy work and religion, many religious workers are unable to envision a happy and meaningful life beyond the clerical and religious worlds. This situation needs to change.
The Ex-cellence Project exists to facilitate this change and correct misconceptions about exiting religion and resigning from the clergy work. The project promotes the notion that ex-clerics excel and can lead happy and more meaningful lives beyond the precincts of clericalism and religion. It provides a sense of community and fellowship to those who have left the clergy work and religion including ex-priests, seminarians, novices, pastors, evangelists, apostles, deacons, nuns, monks, sisters, hermits, rabbis, and imams. The Ex-cellence Project will provide counseling and therapeutic programs to former religious professionals. It will help get rid of the feeling of inadequacy, despair, worthlessness, anomie and other unhealthy sentiments linked to exiting or being exited from seminaries, clergyship, religious formations and professions.
Dr. Igwe is a co-director of the Ex-cellence Project.
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By Hope O’Rukevbe Eghagha
One of the interesting proverbs I picked up in our General African Studies (GAS 201) course with the late Professor Jabez Olowo Ojoade in the University of Jos in 1979 was ‘it is a bastard child that points at his homestead with his left hand! The Akan people of Ghana put it this way: a bastard child points to his father’s house with his left hand’. The Yoruba say that ‘a person who points to their homestead with the left hand is not a good person’, while the Luhya of Kenya say that ‘when pointing to your village, use your right hand’. It is in the Swahili language that a sort of generalised use of the left hand is concretised when it says ‘the left hand is for personal hygiene, not for pointing!
Bastard child! Homestead! Pointing with the left hand! These three constituents and functional parts of the proverb tickled my teenage imagination to no end. What is it about the left had that it should not be used to refer to one’s family? Why is this metaphor common across the continent? Indeed, there must be something about the family, about the homestead, about one’s origins that deserves respect no matter the circumstances.
By the way, some Nigerians in the diaspora also point to Nigeria with their left hand. ‘That country’, is often used to describe the place where some spent eighteen or thirty of their lives as they tried to find their feet. So, in a sense, Kemi is simply doing what some full-blooded Nigerians do in reaction to the anomie which currently rules the land. Kemi stands out because of her delicate and prominent position in the world. We all took offence when Bully Donald Trump referred to ours as ‘shithole countries! At that level, who said what becomes very important, that is, the message is given prominence because of the stature and calibre of the messenger.
The proverb, according to Wikipedia, is ‘often used to convey that someone who is not respectful or grateful to their roots or heritage will eventually be rejected or ostracised by their community! The left hand, we are told, is for personal hygiene. We don’t use it to give or receive gifts; we don’t use it to serve drinks or for traditionally important functions.
In the African context, a bastard child is not one who was born out of wedlock or whose father is not known to the family. Bastard child represents a person who is disconnected from their family. Pointing to the family house with the left hand is indicative of disrespect.
These thoughts flooded my mind when I read recently elected leader of the Conservative Party in the UK, Kemi Badenoch, gave some hard and bad knocks to Nigeria, the Nigeria Police, and governance in her Nigeria, her ancestral home. To be sure, nobody who has encountered some men of the Nigeria Police in action can fault Kemi. Her chemistry of being brutally frank is what has taken Kemi to the heights in Conservative Party politics. Whether she can indeed lead the Party to victory in an election is a different kettle of fish. As the potential leader of the British government, all cards will count when push gets to shove. Which is why Kemi should remember that no well-trained child points to the family house with the left hand.
Nigeria is in process. It is a building site. And we started this project of disparate and different cultures fused together when the British pounced on our ancestors to create Nigeria. We look back to the years when a British monarch, King Henry VIII (1491 to 1547), who ate two of his six wives for breakfast and dinner. Wives Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard were executed by beheading. Jane Seymour died under mysterious circumstances. Perhaps if Diana had emerged in the 15th century as wife to a British monarch, the reigning king would have sent her to the guillotine instead of the tunnel in Paris! Some British monarchs actively participated, supported, and profited from the transatlantic slave trade. British monarchs oversaw the colonisation of indigenous lands in Africa, North America, and Australia sometimes through genocide! No where in Africa, our dear left-handed and grandly insolent Kemi, would a Prime Minister allow his wife to remain in an adulterous relationship for decades as Harold Macmillan did with wife Lady Dorothy Macmillan did with the bisexual Bob Boothby in the 20th Britain!
We may need to remind Kemi that racism still dominated policing in Britain as it does in much of the Western world. Yet, we have not painted the entire police system as being racist. Indeed, Kemi, without officialdom around her can still be profiled by a police officer if she were found driving alone in some areas of London! Her skin colour, is not typically British, I dare say. Yet, we have not said that Britain is racist. The ‘how dark’ racist discussions which precipitated Harry and Meghan fleeing the British monarchy is still very fresh and raw in our consciousness; yet, Nigeria’s Vice President has not called the British monarchy a racist institution.
Time will fail me to discuss the Damilola Taylor case in year 2000 when the Metropolitan Police handling of Taylor’s murder was seen as slow and inadequate due to racial bias. By the way, Damilola was both British and Yoruba like our illustrious and petulant Kemi who believes in giving hard knocks! What about the Stephen Lawrence 1993 murder case which the Metropolitan Police badly handled owing to racial bias? In 1999, Roger Sylvester, a Black man, died in police custody and an inquest showed that the police used excessive force. In 2009, newspaper vendor Ian Tom died after being struck by a police officer during the G20 protests in London. The 1999 Macpherson Report, which investigated the Stephen Lawrence case, concluded that ‘the Metropolitan Police as institutionally racist! As late as 2017, the Lammy Review which was led David Lammy (MP) concluded that “black and minority ethnic individuals were more likely to be stopped and searched, arrested, and imprisoned than their white counterparts! Need I say more?
So, our dear daughter and bright star Kemi in the British firmament, we shall not point to you with our left hand, because in spite of you, you are our daughter. We can only say that the Nigeria Police is in good company of the Empire of the Police system which was created in 1820 by your progenitors from the other side! Colonial vestiges are not easy to shake off!
Opinion
Afe Babalola And Dele Farotimi: On Justice, A Just Society And The Nigerian State
Published
11 hours agoon
December 22, 2024By Tunji Olaopa
The feud between elder statesman, Chief Afe Babalola and civil rights activist, Mr. Dele Farotimi, is perhaps the most significant discourse that postcolonial Nigerian state has thrown up for the moment, one in a class of those grand defining disputations that surely will gather dust which will take some time to abate. And it is one case that is fraught with all sorts of legal, jurisprudential, moral and political traps and complexities that speak to more than the trivial interventions—leveraged around the David and Goliath motif—that are attending the matter. Those who have been able to go beyond the surface of the case will agree that it goes to the very foundation and founding of the Nigerian society, and the fundamental objective of crafting a good and just society for Nigerians. That the issue revolves around the dispensation of justice immediately alerts us to the deep insinuation about the idea of social justice itself, and how the conception of fairness could be written into the very fabric of the Nigerian society. And yet, the complexity of the case is what makes it a case that is too critical for a public servant like me to dabble in.
(Un)fortunately, my intellectual maturation, my political science education and my professional endeavor in institutional reform advocacy have prepared me to intervene in this critical matter. I have always been involved with Nigeria, and with reflective thoughts about how to reconstitute her greatness. Three learning encounters with three world-historic icons configured my passion for wanting to see that Nigeria becomes a state we all can be proud of. The first came from my reading of Plato’s Republic. There is a reason that the entire treatise commenced with the question, what is justice? Justice was a fundamental issue in the decline of the ancient Athenian democracy that allowed Socrates to be judicially murdered. The second learning derived from Wole Soyinka’s dense prison memoir, The Man Died. And like most who have read it, Soyinka was troubled by the idea of justice: “For me, justice is the first condition of humanity.” By the time I would be coming to Thomas More’s Utopia, I was already apprised of the connections between my political science education, my professional endeavor as a public servant, and the key elements of institutional reform as a cogent framework for transforming Nigeria.
From Plato to Soyinka, we have a trajectory of political reflection that takes justice seriously as the basis for organizing a just society. This is part of the intellectual frameworks for my undergraduate and graduate studies at the Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan. In one of those explosive seminar classes that played some fundamental role in my intellectual maturation in the graduate school, I had proposed an argument through a seminar paper titled: “Is a revolution an option to fix Nigeria?” The topic was meant to titillate the collective yearning for revolution that would serve as the ultimate mechanism for social change that would flush off all traces of corruption and degeneration in postcolonial Nigeria. Revolutions seem to possess some allure for the masses because they constitute a framework of justice that the constitutional justice mechanism might not be able to handle.
However, as Wole Soyinka, Thomas More, Martin Luther and even Galileo Galilei would realize, the need for radicalism is balanced by the force of establishment orthodoxy. The Nigerian predicament has, as a fundamental foundation, a lot to do with the connection between governance failure and injustice in terms of the persistent and protracted class strife between the haves and the have-nots, between the rich and the poor, indeed, in the final analysis between the government and the governed. And in the case between Afe Babalola and Dele Farotimi, the issues boil down to the administration of justice and the entire edifices and institutions of social justice and the rule of law in Nigeria. And so, in outlining the key issues involved in the matter, we must be careful enough to read between the lines and the noises of analysts who are eager to queue behind their favored protagonists.
First things first. Let us remove the surface debris. Indeed, and in this case, the debris points us in the direction to look for the rot within the matter. First, there is the matter of civil defamation and its legal ramifications. And second, there is the issue of the legal and moral protocols involved in dealing with the pursuit of redress by someone who knows and understands the law. Barrister Farotimi has a legal right to seek redress in court. Chief Babalola has a legal right to defend his reputation in court. In raising the specter of legal prosecution against defamation, I see Chief Babalola as being at the forefront of gatekeeping the legal establishment in terms of what is and is not permissible or possible under the law and its conservative tenets. If you are hurt or an injustice has been done to your person, then the best place to seek redress is not the court of public opinion but the constitutional legal establishment.
Unfortunately for him, Barrister Farotimi’s book, Nigeria and Its Criminal Justice System, impugns the entire legal and judicial establishment up to its apex institution, the Nigerian Supreme Court. However, does radicalism preclude moral decency? A book could be written and allegations made without the complement of atrocious language. Or maybe the rot in the judicial system, and the need for a revolution preclude any niceties, especially with those who are allegedly at the forefront of perpetuating and protecting the rot. But then, how to prove what we all consider to be the norm in terms of legal prosecution of judicial corruption remains a hanging question.
No matter how we look at what we are calling the surface debris, we are redirected deeper and deeper into what lies beneath the surface. The ultimate question is that between Chief Afe Babalola and Barrister Dele Farotimi, what we are asked to contend with is the state of the Nigerian judiciary and the corrupt impediment of social justice, especially for an average Nigerian. What Barrister Dele Farotimi said about the Nigerian judicial system is not new. We are all familiar with the rot within the system. Indeed, this is not the first time an alarm would be raised about what we are all familiar with. Indeed, as far back as 1999, The News magazine carried a most unsalutary headline, “Crooks on the Bench: An Expose on the Rot in the Judiciary.” The magazine headlined the names of 47 judges indicted for judicial corruption. What is new is that Dele Farotimi dared to go so far as to mention specific names, and to confront the big players in the legal establishment. And he did this in a most scurrilous manner targeted at getting maximum traction and attention. It is as if Mr Farotimi, through the public sphere, is throwing the gauntlet to every Nigerian and challenging us on our collective responsibility to clean the Augean stable.
If Barrister Farotimi cannot prove his allegations in court, it would not mean that his charges are false. It might only imply that the system which is supposed to guarantee justice has become too corruptly dense to achieve its mandate. But there is also the chance that since the entire judicial system cannot be tarred so broadly with the same brush, Farotimi’s allegation might receive a dispassionate hearing that might deliver justice as we expect it. This might be a tall expectation. Nigeria’s postcolonial predicament has inevitable consequences on the capacity of the judicial system to facilitate the delivery of justice. And this failure also complicates the capacity of the Nigerian state to deliver on its social contract to Nigerians. This is what makes the Babalola-Farotimi case too complex to be decided either in the constitutional court or the court of public opinion. The burdens of postcolonial disruptions that the Nigerian judiciary system carries are enormous: judicial corruption, miscarriage of judgments, executive lawlessness, delayed trial due to insufficient infrastructure, financial dependence on the executive arm of government.
To outline the fundamental challenges of the judicial system in Nigeria this way is not to give in to cynicism and a deterministic mindset that we might be caught in a vice that is inescapable. It is simply to say that the ongoing uproar between the two dramatis personae demonstrates that the court has been given a chance to reflect on the role that (in)justice plays in the fundamental understanding of the Nigerian postcolonial predicament and the capacity of a democratic system to correct itself. When Chief Afe Babalola and Barrister Dele Farotimi are given their day in court, we will have no choice but to trust that same judicial system to deliver unbiased judgment no matter our misgivings about how objective and untainted that judgment could be. This is just a way of saying that though our judicial system is not perfect; it is still the best that we have.
The last words on this reflection on the connection between the ongoing feud between Babalola and Farotimi and Nigeria’s postcolonial predicament must be given to Haile Sellasie, former emperor of Ethiopia: “Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.”
Olaopa is the Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission,Abuja, and Professor of Public Administration.
tolaopa2003@gmail.com
By Leo Igwe
The Advocacy for Alleged Witches (AfAW) is concerned over the reported arrest of two men accused of being ‘witchdoctors’ in Zambia. The arrest underscores the potency of witchcraft fears and the connection between occult anxieties and the country’s politics. These individuals were accused of trying to bewitch the Zambian president, Hakainde Hichilema. The police claimed that they had charms. They planned to use the charms to harm the president. The report says the two persons have been charged under Zambia’s Witchcraft Act. The Act criminalizes “possession of charms”, “professing knowledge of witchcraft”, and “cruelty to wild animals”. The police found the two with assorted charms, including a live chameleon.
This development is utterly embarrassing and shows that the Zambian government is slowly losing its focus and bearing.The country has many socio-economic challenges. Suspicion of bewitchment or possession of charms should be the least of its worries at this time. There should be no place for witchcraft and possession of charms in modern politics because there is no evidence for these beliefs and practices. Zambian authorities should not weaponize the Witchcraft Act or use it to justify this incident. Zambian law does not recognize witchcraft. Zambia’s Witchcraft Act criminalizes naming or imputing witchcraft. It prohibits accusing or threatening to accuse any person of being a witch or a wizard. In this case, it is the police who are breaking the law.
Otherwise, how did they know the two individuals were ‘witchdoctors’? Did these persons identify as witch doctors? If not, the police are liable because they named and imputed witchcraft and have to prove that these individuals have witch-doctoring powers. The police claimed to have charged these individuals for possessing “assorted charms”, including a chameleon. Really?
The police in Zambia have questions to answer: What are charms? How did they know that what was in their possession were charms, not pets? Is a chameleon a form of charm? What makes possession of a chameleon possession of a charm? When and how does a chameleon become a charm? The police need to answer these questions and more before one takes them seriously.
Again, did the individuals describe what was in possession as ‘charms’? If they did, does confessing or designating something as a charm make it a charm? And if they did not, the police are liable because they need to prove how those possessions translated into charms.
In addition, the police claimed that the duo wanted to bewitch the president. What does that mean? How did they know? Are the police not contravening a provision under the Witchcraft Act by professing knowledge of witchcraft? Can one harm another person using a chameleon? They claimed that the two persons wanted to use the charms in their possession, including the chameleon to harm the president. How did they know that? What is the evidence for that?
The Advocacy for Alleged Witches calls for an end to this state-sponsored witch hunt. There is no evidence of harm through witchcraft or charms. The Zambian government should desist from witchcraft- related infractions and violations including arbitrary arrest, and detention of innocent citizens. These allegations are baseless and absurd. The arrest was politically motivated. This development demonstrates that Zambian authorities are out of sync with their duty and obligation to uphold the rule of law and protect accused persons.
Zambian authorities need to act in compliance with the 2021 UN resolution, which urged states to take measures to combat abuses linked to witchcraft beliefs and ritual attacks. End witchcraft allegations in Zambia. End witch hunts in Africa now!
Dr Igwe directs the Advocacy for Alleged Witches.
NEW TIMES CULTURE
Kemi Badenoch’s Bad Knocks On Nigeria
Afe Babalola And Dele Farotimi: On Justice, A Just Society And The Nigerian State
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