By Owei Lakemfa
Anambra State Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo in a Trumpian manner, made several fallacious and specious statements at the December 2024 dedication of a new church building in Onitsha. For example, the press quoted him as saying: “Since the inception of my administration, we have declared war on criminals, their shrines, priests and burnt down their idols.”
In this claim, he tries to present non-Christians and non-Muslims as the criminals in the state. This is a fallacy. Criminals including elites looting our common patrimony, cut across all religions. In fact, many criminals who claim adherence to foreign religions, use the proceeds of their crime to go on pilgrimages. When he talked about declaring war on “their shrines” Soludo exhibits his severe limitation of the English language.
The Oxford Dictionary explains that a shrine is: “a place regarded as holy because of its associations with a divinity or a sacred person or relic, marked by a building or other construction.” So, the building he went to open in Onitsha, is nothing but a shrine.
Then he mentioned priests; but it is not traditional religion alone that has priests, all major religions I know including Christianity which he claims to practice, also have priests. Soludo proudly proclaims that he has: “burnt down their idols.” An idol is an image or representation of the Almighty. The fact that churches have the images of the cross, Jesus or Mary, does not mean those are what Christians worship, it simply means that they are images or some representation or symbol.
So, if Soludo has been involved in burning idols, then he is publicly confessing to criminality and deserves to be tried and imprisoned once he ceases to be governor and loses his immunity. He wails that: ”Idolatry is the fastest growing religion in the state.” As I explained earlier, traditional religion adherents, at least in Nigeria, do not worship idols; these are mere representations.
Rather, they believe in God, and this has been so for thousands of years before Christianity. So, it was not foreigners who taught Africans about God. Thousands of years before Abraham was reportedly called from Ur of the Chaldees, the Yorubas knew God as Olorun or Olodumare, the Hausas call him Ubangiji while the Igbos call him Chineke, Olisa or Chukwu, which is the governor’s middle name.
In any case, how can it be a state matter that a particular religion is allegedly winning more adherents? How does such concern put food on the table of the Anambra people? How does it lead to the provision of more schools, hospitals, houses or jobs? Is Governor Soludo in reality such a jobless man?
In addressing imaginary enemies, Soludo said: “They can come with whatever they want to but with the Bible in our right hand, we shall prevail.” Wrong! What the Governor as the chief security officer of Anambra State needs to wield in his right hand is not the Bible, but the law, and in his left hand, the sword of justice. He was not elected into office as a priest, but to govern in accordance with the constitution.
Soludo in a self-righteous manner proclaimed on the rooftops: “We must not take it for granted. Pope Francis preaches ecumenism. I just don’t preach it, I try to live it out.” Such claims of piety, cut no ice. Religion is an issue between a person and God and, only God knows who truly worships him. Jesus Christ had settled such matters thousands of years ago when he was quoted in Mathew 7: 21-23 as saying: “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” What is expected of Soludo as a Governor is not to shout around about ecumenism, but to promote the unity of all Nigerians irrespective of religion, ethnic nationality, regionalism and political affiliation.
Soludo at the ceremony, proclaimed Anambra a Christian State. This, like most Soludo talks and programmes, is empty talk. Was this a proclamation of the State Assembly, or the product of a referendum? This false claim is an impeachable offence as it is a blatant violation of the constitution. Section 10 states in simple English: “The Government of the Federation or State shall not adopt any religion as State religion.”
If Soludo were a man of honour, based on this his patently false claim, should have resigned and returned to his profession of economic speculation and preaching the discredited gospel of the Western Structural Adjustment Programme, SAP which ruined most African countries including Nigeria.
This Soludo declaration which is part of the strategy of causing confusion and disunity amongst the Nigeria people, is an old discredited one. This dates back to colonial times when the colonialists championed the divisive politics and slogan of ‘Muslim North’ in reference to Northern Nigeria which in reality, was, and remains, a multi-religious, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-cultural society. The British colonialists were so vicious, and that in order to sponsor religious divide in Northern Nigeria, it consciously excluded Christians from being admitted into Katsina College, the only school in the 1920s providing high school education in the North.
Some years ago, some state Governors imposed Sharia based on claims that the states they ruled were Muslim States. Those governors succeeded so well that when the extremist fruits they planted sprouted into Boko Haram and bandits, even they themselves cannot comfortably live in their states. They became muffled choristers of religious de-radicalisation in Northern Nigeria.
Today, there is a similar retrogressive movement in Western Nigeria. There are now traditional rulers who want to ban traditional religion in favour of their own private religion. There are also those who are obviously profiting from a campaign to introduce Sharia in the area. When such campaigns bear fruits as they did in the North, such characters will flee the land.
Promotion of religious extremism continues in various forms. For instance, while Jesus Christ fasted for forty days, a leading Nigerian church, obviously in order to get ahead of its rivals, has in 2025 decreed 100 days of fasting. Apart from the health of the adherents who are engaged in these marathon fast, what sense does it make to get a people to fast for 100 of the 355 days in a year? So while serious countries like the United States and China will be at work, producing, some Nigerians will be spending about one third of a year fasting and praying.
We need to call to order, people misusing religion for divisive politics and private gains; violating the secular provisions of the constitution and generally, luring Nigerians into lethargy when they should be productive.
