Of Nigeria and Hausa Christian Names

(By Farooq A. Kperogi) – Hausa-Speaking Northern Christian Names: An Onomastic Analysis

… I have a scholarly fascination with the origin, form, development, and domestication of personal names—an area of inquiry linguists call onomastics. … 

I pointed out that several Arabic names “have taken on the structural features of the Yoruba language.” I said this wasn’t unique to Yoruba Muslims. “As scholars of onomastics or onomatology know only too well,” I wrote, “when proper names leave their primordial shores to other climes they, in time, are often liable to local adaptation…. That’s why, for instance, there are many Arabic-derived personal names in Hausa, the most Arabized ethnic group in Nigeria, that would be unrecognizable to Arabs. Names like Mamman (Muhammad), Lawan (Auwal), Shehu (Sheikh), etc. would hardly make much sense to an Arab.”

The personal names of Hausa-speaking Northern Nigerian Christians also have an onomastic uniqueness that is worth exploring. I use “Hausa-speaking Northern Nigerian Christians” here rather loosely to refer to a miscellany of ethnic groups primarily in Nigeria’s northwest and northeast who are nonetheless united by Christianity and the Hausa language. This geo-cultural group, for the most part, excludes northern states like Benue, Kogi, Kwara, and maybe Niger, where most Christians historically bear conventional Western Christian names, but might include Plateau and Nasarawa states.

Benin Kingdom, the Oba, and Religious Diversity

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Of Prophets, Showmen & Open-Enterprise Religion

(By Ikeddy Isiguzo) - Odumeje: Onitsha’s Trending Trader

Prophet Chukwuemeka Ohanaemere is testimony that size cannot obstruct one’s determination to excel in a chosen career. The petit fellow, who has seized minds in Onitsha, can easily be lost in a crowd of three. He is that small.

He has put his size to mesmerising acrobatics that hold audiences captive in serial releases of theatrics, some of which you won’t expect in a Christian place of worship. He is him.

He can break into a dance in the middle of his rare conversations about the Almighty: the music could be any trending secular ‘dance all’ number with lyrics that should not be heard in church. He makes his own rules in a business that is doubtlessly lucrative.

Some of his best advertisements are video clips of followers. In testifying to his abilities, they spray him with money, in amounts that confirm he is into serious business, or his visits to businesses, where crowds quickly gather when they hear he is around.

An alliance with Nollywood actors guarantees a sprinkling of popular faces to his church. Whether worshippers go for Nollywood, wrestling, his dance steps or miracles, their expectations are exceeded.

However, he remains his best advertisement with performances that include sporadic leaps into the air as if he intends to fly. The unwritten rule is space, more space, around him for his sprouts of displays.

"Religion Has Messed Up Many A Promising Life!"

(By Emeka Oparah) - Now, this is how people are being wasted! 
         I visited a cousin last weekend. We hadn’t seen each other for over a year. Expectedly, there was a lot of catching up to do including the rising spate of sudden and “inexplicable” deaths, especially of young people. In actual fact, there were more than 5 funerals due back home in the village, as we were talking-and that, my dear friends, bothered us a whole lot. Then, he told me a story.
         Last Christmas, he was home (while I was abroad, ironically). A diabetic, he probably over-reached himself, and started feeling “one-kind”. He asked to be rushed to a hospital and was taken to one of the better ones. As soon as the doctor saw him, he ordered he be given a drip! Drip, Father wondered. Yes, drip!
         “Doctor, why would you give me an infusion when you haven’t even asked me any questions; you haven’t taken my vitals or requested my medical history”, he questioned.
         The doctor took one cynical look at him and sarcastically asked him: “Are you a doctor? If you are, why then did you come to me. May be you’re not sick. When you are sick enough, you talk to me!” And with that said, he called the next victim, sorry patient.
         Crazy!!! And that’s how one of the folks, due for burial this weekend in the village, died. She too is a diabetic. A widow, her mother-in-law was to be buried the next day, and she suddenly started feeling sick. She called her friend, a “nurse”, who then gave her an infusion right in her bedroom and went away. After an hour or so, concerned family members went to check on her and found her dead!!! I’m not sure they didn’t say her late mother-in-law took her! You never know these things.

Nigeria and the Effects of Religion

(By Raymond Ijabla & Biodun Aiyegboyin) – The Destructive Effects Of Religion On The Nigerian Society

From the professor of medicine who lectures at the prestigious University of Ibadan, to the almajiri destitute who roams the streets of Kano, to the wealthy real estate manager in Port Harcourt, to the lowly nomad of arid Baga, there is one thing that connects these people - religion. Religion permeates every facet of the Nigerian society and influences the collective mindset of its people. Religion supposedly makes people good except that the evidence does not support this claim.

What we know is that our society is plagued by all the inequality, injustice and atrocities that one rarely encounters in the godless Scandinavian societies, to use just one example. Our high degree of religiosity has not translated into good governance and prosperity for our citizens. The reasons are not far-fetched, and are discussed below.

One thing is undeniable – our society needs a change of attitude and values. So how can we do things differently? 

Mr. Biodun Aiyegboyin teams up with the secular humanist and commentator on Nigerian socio-political and religious matters, Dr. Ijabla Raymond, to explore these issues, and more.

A Shocking Death and the Will of God

Oluchi Anekwe; source: jide-salu.com

(Simon Kolawale)--How do you respond to the electrocution of a promising university undergraduate, a first-class material at that? You can say "it is God's will" — as it is our custom in Nigeria — or you can say that once again, another light has been dimmed in clearly avoidable circumstances.

Oluchi Anekwe, a 300-level accounting student of the University of Lagos, was killed on Tuesday when a naked wire fell on her from an electric pole. Since there was no natural disaster such as a storm, you get the sense that the deadly cable had been hanging dangerously for a while. It was somebody's responsibility, I guess, to maintain those cables. The "somebody" failed in his duty and there are no consequences. Life goes on. We await the next electrocution, the next "God's will".

The Harm Nollywood and Religion Cause Nigeria

With all the Nollywood hype on juju, money rituals, power rituals, witches and wizards, and prayers that cure all problems, one would have thought that Nigeria would be topping the medals’ list at the on-going Olympics in London. The Americas, Asia, Europe and other parts of the world would have stayed by the sidelines kowtowing with trembling and trepidation as Nigeria pockets medal after medal.

But regrettably, it seems the potency of the juju from these named climes dwarfs ours. Or, perhaps the citizens of these continents pray better and harder than we do. Or, put more resignedly: Maybe God loves these nations more than Nigeria.

Less than three weeks ago – precisely on July 25 – the media reported the arrest of two men from Nasarawa State, near the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, with the fresh head of a seven-year-old boy. The victim was identified as Samu Danjuma, the child of their neighbours. According to the confession they made to the police before the media when they were paraded by officials of the State Security Services, they had lured the boy with a loaf of bread, drowned him, and beheaded him for sale to a man who had promised them N250,000.00.

On July 27, two men were arrested in Lagos with the decomposing, mutilated body of their 39-year-old brother, Akinbuyi Ajayi, in their family house in Festac Town. Some body parts such as the head, hands, private part and a part of the two legs had been removed from the corpse. The decomposing corpse was discovered after the two were caught by the police allegedly selling some human parts. That led to a search of their house, a duplex which their parents had left behind for them.

Death in the Synagogue

Pastor T.B. Joshua and the collapsed edifice

Ordinarily, the Synagogue should be a place of hope, a place of succour, a place of rest, to use a biblical term. But at Ikotun, a suburb of Lagos, a spiritual edifice that goes by the name The Synagogue of All Nations has in the last few days become a place of blood. Even when we are yet to ascertain the reason(s) why the Church’s guest house under construction collapsed, and in the process taking scores of people down, there are already plausible speculations that some clever gods might have circumvented building codes.

Whatever may have been responsible for the tragedy, it is difficult to believe the theory that Boko Haram deployed its “fighter jets” to Lagos to kill Pastor Temitope Joshua. That is what the church leader has been telling those who cared to listen with some video clips as evidence of his claim. Anybody who believes such a tale can believe anything, apology to James Hadley Chase!

However, to the extent that there is an international dimension to the tragedy, the authorities have to conduct a thorough investigation. The Synagogue is a centre for spiritual tourism because of the claim that Pastor Joshua has the powers to cure any and every ailment/affliction, from HIV/AIDS to Ebola.