I have been pondering over the Religious Regulation Bill that was sent to the Kaduna State House of Assembly by the Mallam Nasir El-Rufai led executive government. Well, for those who are not yet familiar with the Bill, here is a synopsis of it.
The Religious Regulation Bill, designed to replace the Religious Regulation Edict of 1984, is geared, among other things, towards regulating Christianity and Islam as it seeks to create an inter-faith Ministerial Committee to be appointed by the governor and exercise control over Jama’atu Nasril Islam, JNI, and the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN. The creation of an inter-faith Ministerial Committee, to be appointed by the governor shall issue licenses to religious bodies. Without such licenses, you cannot preach.
Honestly, I see this bill as a contravention of our nation's constitutional provision on the freedom of religion and propagation of same. Section 38 (1) of the 1999 constitution and Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Right, provide:“Every person shall be entitled to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom (either alone or in community with others, and in public or in private) to manifest and propagate his religion or belief in worship, teaching, practice and observance.”
To me, religion is a very delicate issue any responsible government would want to toy with. There are several areas of society begging for development and Mr. El-rufai would do well to channel his energy towards a meaningful development of Kaduna state rather than stirring the nest of religious crisis in his state. Regardless of any justification the government may want to put forward, censoring religion under whatever guise is totally unacceptable, immoral, illegal, and against the multi-religious framework of the Nigerian nation-state. What do you guys think?
Other high-points of the controversial bill include:
No external preacher can preach in Kaduna without a permit.
The committee has the power to refuse to issue licenses. No criteria are given as to what will qualify one to have a license issued to him or for one to be denied a license.
While the law does not regulate traditionalists in the practice of their beliefs, they are to have a representative on the committee which regulates the Christian and Muslim religions.
The bill empowers JNI and CAN to keep records of churches and mosques including data of preachers. (The law does not stipulate what ‘data’ is required to qualify for license).
The law criminalizes the use of religious CDs, flash drive and other communication gadgets except in churches, mosques or other places of worship or personal houses. The implication is that you cannot listen to Christian tapes in your car or at any place except your house and in a church. If you preach without a license, you are guilty of an offence punishable by two years imprisonment.
If you hold any Christian gathering even in a church and use loud speaker (microphone) after 8.00 p.m, you are guilty of an offence punishable with two years imprisonment. If you listen to a message in your car, you are guilty of an offence punishable by two years imprisonment. If you hold a crusade or any programme or any other kind of programme and use a loudspeaker at the said programme as long as it is not a church, you are guilty of an offence punishable by two years imprisonment.
The bill criminalizes the abuse of religious books and makes it punishable by two years imprisonment. (It does not define what ‘abuse of religious books’ mean. It criminalizes the use of derogatory terms in describing any religion and makes it punishable by two years imprisonment. It does not define what ‘use of derogatory terms in describing any religion’ means.)
Every preacher will have to obtain one year license (renewable every year) or risk two years imprisonment. If you invite any external preacher (i.e. preacher from outside Kaduna State), such a person must be licensed for the duration of his/her stay and the body issuing the license has the right to reject the external preacher if it feels he is not qualified to preach in the state.
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