In recent years, a closer look at the Nigerian tertiary institutions reveals a worrisome skew from the epicentrum of scholarly life. Religious groups (both Christian and Islamic) have mostly filled the emblematic and substantial spaces vacated by civil intellectual, scholarly and erudite organizations. The ideology: ‘Students-as-quaestors-after-knowledge’ has been replaced by ‘Students-as-religious-disciples.’

Along with the degradation of infrastructure is the obvious decline of spaces once occupied by intellectually pulsating and politically incisive student bodies. Every nook and cranny on the campuses across the country is now a battle-field for inter-religious struggle between Christianity and Islam. What now occupy the academic notice boards on campuses are flyer messages announcing: Only Jesus can save; accept Islam and be saved; this campus is for Christ; die not except as a Muslim; and Islam, the only way to Paradise.

Academic experts say a moderate exhibition of everything is what is required within an educational institution, but in Nigeria today, academia is infected with the fiddle-faddles of religions transported from eastern and western cultures. Students who should be striving for mental emancipation and intellectual crest are rather most concerned with the religionization of the academic environs. And with religion now ‘opium of the Nigerian academe,’ one can only wonder what the lies ahead for the country.

     According to written records, the countrywide flourish of charismatic religious vehemence on Nigerian campuses began in the late ’70s, when the Pentecostal revolution swept into modern Nigeria. According to Ebenezer Obadere’s report on the rise of Nigeria’s students zealots, the evolving interdenominational student groups of the 1970’s were sociable, if not exactly inviting, and for the most part were regarded as merely another aspect of a lively campus culture. But since the early ’80s, so-called born-again students and faithful Muslim students have sought to cultivate a specific identity as worshippers, one which contradicts the notion that they are first and foremost, students exercising their right to research ideas, test hypothesis and build theories for the improvement of society and human lives.

     This trend of religious gusto has misplaced the priorities of the essence of education among Nigerian academia. Prior to the Pentecostal revolution in Nigerian universities, University of Lagos, University of Ibadan, University of Nigeria, Nsuka and Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, among other universities in the country had instituted intercontinental reputations as resounding scholarly environs, credible and worthy of inspiring societal growth.

Religious cultures transported

Nigeria is just one of the many states influenced by the Christianization and Islamization crusades of the medieval eras as empires (Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman) sought economic, social, political and military supremacy.

The Western View
The expansion of Islam and the Arab empire through the Seljuk Turks in the 11th century caused a note of distress to the clergy of Christianity. The conquest of areas in the Christian Byzantium Empire helped to spur anger and resentment against Muslims. With an ever increasing population in the western world and the papal state’s need for power and territory the Crusades was the end result. There were a series of campaigns against Islam and against heretics and troublemakers in Europe itself.

     They were led by kings, princes, knights and papal legates as well as by shepherds and hermits. Frequently, they were under the control of the Church but in some instances they were not. The Church also offered many incentives to encourage men to take the Cross and conquer the Muslims. There were altogether seven crusades that were launched to conquer or regain land from the Arabs. However, while the Crusades began as a move to conquer the Muslims, they became a battle within the Christian faith itself. Many of the Europeans lost their values and religious beliefs and thus the Crusades became a time of re-identifying their faith.

    The First Crusade in 1096 was sprung from Pope Urban II’s sermon in 1095. This was the only crusade that the westerners successfully won. Future Crusades lacked disorganization and while many battles were won by the western world, the eventual outcome had the Arabs at the head. However, with thousands of dead from all faiths, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, who was the real victor?

The Eastern View

"Regard the Franj! Behold with what obstinacy they fight for their religion, while we, the Muslims, show no enthusiasm for waging holy war."- Salah Al-Din.

To those of the Eastern world, the invasion of the Frankish people was not one of enlightenment. It was instead an attempt to conquer a land that was for centuries in the hands of eastern civilizations ranging from Arabs, Kurds, Armenians, and many more people of different ethnic descent. To the Muslims and the non-Muslims of the east, the Crusades was a war of a barbarous nature that needed to be repelled. It was a war against their faith and their customs. However, the decline of the Arab civilization soon after coming out victorious in the Crusades suggests that there were deeper issues in the conflict between the west and east. While the Crusades opened up new horizons and new trading areas for the west, the eastern world’s establishments began to decline and deteriorate and the lands they conquered became lost in the political power struggle between the Arabs (http://crusades.org/).

Why these Religions have thrived in Nigeria

Influencing factor?

Economically, the majority of 130 million Nigerians are impoverished by unemployment, unresponsive and repressive governments, lack of basic social infrastructure and amenities, marginalization and rising inflation, and so have clung to the church or the mosque as their last refuge.

Religion’s promise of prosperity has greatly influenced the rational psychology of the Nigerian masses just as it has in other parts of Africa. The quest for a divine intervention in the dire situation of most Nigerians has also led to the increasing influence of an array of spiritual advisers who have become part and parcel of official structures of power across the country, creating a select theocratic class with direct phone lines to the corridors of state power.

While the poor and oppressed run after them (pastors and imams) seeking deliverance from the spirits of poverty and deprivation, the rich and powerful go after these pastors for spiritual protection from alleged enemies who, they are convinced, are lurking around with the aim of pulling them down. These spiritual leaders, meanwhile, often use the quoted biblical injunction that "givers never lack" as their priestly recompense and keep the givers hoping for heaven’s manner. According to critics, the fact that most pastors don’t ask the donors how they make the money they give, sums up the lucrative nature of the pastorial business. In a 2005 report by the BBC, the Pentecostal faith in Nigeria is described as a veritable goldmine, judging by the opulence of most of its pastors. “It is made even more attractive because incomes of churches are tax-exempt. Nearly all the churches are the private property of their pastors or founders and their immediate families. While followers throw their energies behind the precepts of tithes and offerings for manner to fall from heaven,” the report indicated

These often wealthy, elegant and usually bling pastors, who like to be called Men of God, organize crusades in camps and university campuses promising a host of miracles including passing examinations with flying colors among other miracles. Some university students have resorted to the promise of these miracles, instead of yearning for excellence in terms of knowledge to help address the country’s major scientific pitfalls, the age old economic quagmire due to gross mismanagement and, most of all, the growing fissure between the Islamic north and Christian south. Instead of using their assembly as a united student body to find ways of bridging the religious gap and bringing all Nigerians together, university students are learning to put to use the principles of separatism, while future of Nigeria hangs on the edge of a ‘going astray’ academic milieu.