Numbing Religion in Nigeria's Public Schools

(Temidayo Ahanmisi)--I used to worry constantly that Religion was destroying Nigerian schools.

I wondered how as a society we could promote Rationalism and scientific methods of inquiry when we teach children from the outset that a being called Satan could make them forget what they have read in an examination hall.

I actually heard a woman say this of her son who failed his common entrance exams.

I have a multi-religion background. I didn't want too much religion for my own kids.

Scratch that. I'd rather my kids jettison Religion in totality.

The problem however was that I saw religion being taught right from the schools. I don't know how IRK is presented these days, but the pentecostals are doing mayhem in their usual fashion in the christian realm. A lot of schools are introducing texts to children which makes CRK a more practical design.

It is no longer bland story telling. They now actively proselytize children and ask them to ''save souls for Christ''.

The irritations of the pentecostal pulpits from sunday services are creeping into schools.

I, on my part have always countered the filth from society by raising my child to be skeptic. My child questions everything and rejects philosophical constructs which offend humanist ideals and objectives.

I knew then the power of parenting in the venture of indoctrination.

If I could deliberately provoke my own to stoke her natural bent to curiousity this way, imagine how a parent on the other hand could stifle and completely destroy such in their own wards.

I began to worry about the effect of early formal indoctrination and outright brainwashing of Nigerian children in schools.

I once had to wait to meet someone near a primary school. They set up a microphone on assembly and a preacher came on to deliver a 45-minute long sermon to the children. A fiery sermon full of testimonies of Jehovah killing household enemies and witches who tried to mess with his children.

Then the children were enjoined to go into a loud prayer session that lasted at least 30 minute. They prayed, the cast out devils, they spoke in tongues.

Primary school children.

I shook my head and pitied them.

Then my own child's school teacher invited her pastor to anoint the children in her class. My child reported that some of her classmates were ''muttering nonsense'' and contorting into ''crazy'' poses They said they were ''in anointing''.

I resolved to withdraw her from that mentally toxic environment.

She is different. I won't have her singled out and treated as offensive and queer by any idiot society.

My singular concentration on finding a secular school for my child led me to find a few schools right in my town that are fully secular. No teaching of Religion.

It is a very well run institution which teaches Critical Thinking as a core subject. The teaching methods are way ahead of other schools. The work culture of their staff is commendable.

I regret that though I would have loved to sing the praises of this school to high heavens, I am hampered for security reasons from doing so. Besides the school is bogged down with requests.

The owner tells of being pressured at inception to jettison the idea of cancelling out the teaching of either IRK or CRK. Most parents withdrew their kids for this reason. The school integrated the Character Counts patented curriculum to meet the demands for some form of moral instruction for kids.

The Character Counts System is now being franchised in several schools across Nigeria. Ask about it.

Now let me get to the gist of this long story:

If you do not look around, you will not realise that things are changing and that others are creating the things you imagine are wild dreams.

We can complain and mock all we want, but society will remain society BECAUSE society is just the way it wants to be.

Society is comfortable with itself. You are not. You wail at society. You rail. You moan. You unfriend and debate incessantly over these issues. Society looks at you nonplussed.

Society is You. Society is your family. Society is your home. Society is your friends, your spouse, your children.

Stop right there.

Children.

Children are society.

If we polled Nigerians on the entire Social Media today from facebook to Twitter, to Instablog and the vast cyberworld, who would readily self-identify as either ''Atheist/Freethinker/Secularist/Agnostic/humanist...and all tags that would suggest a readiness to embrace a more secular society, they would number at least 200,000.

I just want to be conservative here about the number.

Now among this number, up to half would be empowered to contribute financially toward any goal they really desired in some way from their clothing, their feeding to their schooling and business.

They all complain that Religion is killing Nigeria. They go home to sit with the murderers of Nigeria. Sometimes they join them. They feel they have no choice.

They are deluded. They lack integrity enough to take a stance for their needs.

The religious ones do.

The irreligious are weasels. They would rather gripe than act.

The owner of my child's school, by the way is a Christian, married to a Muslim. Ponder on that, dear Unbeliever before you call all Christians and Muslims idiots next time.

Fact is, whether you are right, and Religion is some form of mental illness, IT DOES NOT MATTER beyond your facebook rants if all you do is shade and sleep.

You will marry men and women who ''destroy the Nigerian society''. You will love them. You will have kids, who based on which parent is their primary caregiver especially in the first 7 formative years of their life, when their mentality or psyche is most vulnerable to indoctrination, would become murderers of Nigerian society in the next few years to come.

You are in the rot. You have the power to stem it. You choose to dissipate your energy on pointless criticism and creating enemy enclaves.

I see no reason why 50 young, supposedly reasonable Nigerians based home and abroad cannot raise funds to build a 6 classroom school at least in somewhere like Lagos. There are no existing laws against private secular schools. There have never been in the Nigerian constitution.

Why can't a group of people so intellectually attuned fashion out an educational science-based curriculum that can be domesticated and taught in schools across Africa?

You'd be hard pressed to gather 10 Nigerian secularists...nay Atheists. Just say Atheists in a group, have them draw up a clear objective vision and work toward it for 3 months. They lack the necessary intelligence to stay on course. I don't fear to be proved wrong on this. I know I am right.

On the other hand, you can gather 20 Nigerians under a religious inter-denominational umbrella and make them move a mountain in 30 days.

A Nigerian Atheist reading this would still be stuck on the phrase ''move a mountain''. They would be penning a diatribe in their head about how ''some stupid Nigerians are talkinga bout moving a mountain.'' Then they would tell us how scientifically mountains cannot be moved. Then they will gather to argue about this and curse each other out until they have unfriended one another to the last man.

This is how smart we actually are.

We are too smart to help our causes.

An Atheist friend recently wrote a book criticizing Religion. Some religionists went after him. He's been living below par - displaced from home and work - for months on end. His Atheist friends are too busy fighting over Buhari and the rights of Fulanis to graze over their heads and bodies to know this. They wouldn't care even if he came out to tell. He does not like Buhari. He'd be sunk as half of Nigerian atheists on his friend list are die hard Buharists.

The problem with ‪#‎bogusNigeria‬ is this:

We do not care about PURPOSE. We worry too much about our labels and cliques to ask ourselves the most important question: ''And so?''

This is the question progressive societies ask of themselves ALL the time. All the damn time.

We are the ''fastest growing economy''. 60% of our workforce attend church on Monday mornings and live below a dollar per day.

We have the most televangelists with private jets. More than 65% of Nigerians have no access to toilet facilities.

='' I am proud to be an Atheist. Fuck all your Gods and holy books. Too many churches all around. Nigerian children are brainwashed from childhood. Fuck this society!''

*Uploads memes of Hitchens and Gervais excoriating Religion and mocking religious beliefs.

Then he logs off the internet to go help his wife bath the kids for sunday school.

= These Nigerian pastors are building schools their poor members can't attend. When will my people stop being brainwashed and think for themselves?''

*uploads photos of fine house and cars. Gets lots of likes. *

Has never donated a kobo to a ghetto school in their community.

For shame.