Ayo okulaja, AfricaNews reporter in Lagos, Nigeria
Christian leaders in Nigeria have described the planned introduction of Islamic banking as a ploy to 'Islamize the secular country' but their Muslims colleagues affirm that the banking system has come to stay. With a Muslim group threatening an all-out war if the bank is not allowed to operate. This is the lingering controversy that has gripped Africa's most populous country which has recorded the loss of hundreds of lives to religious crises in the past.
The nation’s apex bank, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had in June, rolled out a revised policy on the establishment of Islamic banking and non-interest banking in the nation’s financial system which according to the CBN governor; Sanusi Lamido Sanusi –an Islamic scholar- “will deepen the financial market and enhance the potential of Nigeria to become Africa’s Islamic banking hub.”
He argues that “Islamic banking is a model of non-interest banking and profit and loss sharing banking recognized by our laws in Nigeria.”
Subsequently, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), led by Ayo Oritsejafor, has fervently condemned the policy which he claims is a ploy the CBN governor to ‘Islamize the country.’ Also the head of the 50million Catholics in the country; Cardinal Anthony Okogie, claim the CBN governor was “gradually trying to force us into embracing the Sharia system.” He noted that the conditionalities attached to the loans obtainable from the bank are in favor of Sharia system. So it is a ploy to Islamize the country.”
This condemnation resulted in a very strong rhetoric from the Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria, when its president; Ibrahim Datti declared that “untold casualties will result if Christians in Nigeria do not drop their anti-Islamic banking position.”
Lot of nonsense
Threatening to go to war, Mr Datti at a press conference in Kaduna state stated that the organization will mobilize Muslims in the country to go to war with Christians over the ongoing Islamic banking controversy.
“We have taken a lot of nonsense; we have come to the end and from now its tit for tat. There are quite a number of rascals in cassocks that have been talking recently; we’ll meet fire for fire this time. Whether it’s an archbishop or whoever he is who talks nonsense, we’ll get people to answer him in the same language. If he talks as a rascal, we’ll reply him as a rascal,” he said. “This matter is a direct confrontation to the Christian Association of Nigeria” he warned.
The cleric argued that since banking system is practiced in Britain and other Christian dominated countries successfully, Nigerian Muslims would resist any attempt to frustrate the implementation of the system in the country.
After a prolonged silence, the spiritual leader of Nigerian Muslims and Sultan of Sokoto; Sa’ad Abubakar III, decried the controversy saying it was unnecessary. The Sultan in a very subtle but affirmative manner noted that the Islamic banking “has come to stay” and warned Nigerians to stop antagonizing the Muslim community over the issues. The Sultan who doubles as President of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs and the Jama’atul Nasril Islam, however, ruled out the use of violence by Muslims in their agitations.
Other issues raised by Christian clerics against the apex bank’s boss are his persistent clamor for Islamic banking in isolation of other non-interest banking and the new guideline for the issuance of license for the former where there should be a uniform guideline for the sector.
However, the Pastor of Latter Rain Assembly, who was also the Vice-Presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in the last presidential elections, Tunde Bakare supports the banking system, saying it “has benefits for everybody economically.”
He described opposition to the system as baseless saying “Islamic banking cannot Islamize Nigeria just as Christian banking system cannot Christianize the country since the system will operate within the law of the land” Bakare explained. According to him, if the Bible says “do away with usury, any cleric who says otherwise would be an anti-progressive element in the church,” adding that, “those preachers against Islamic banking are only propagating their personal agenda.”
Nigeria, with a population of over 150million people is evenly divided into Christians dominated South and Muslims in the North.
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