Religion as a Vector of Imperialism – the Nigerian Context

Imperialism is an overbearing concept whether you accept the reality of its influence or not. Throughout the many spheres of social, economic, and political activity, if you squint and tilt your head a bit you will see through the veil and recognize imperialism. Even within personal practices like religion, the influence of imperialism and colonialism lies in waiting, ready to fracture our psyches through altered narratives and the sowing of uncertainty or mistrust.

Between Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, imperialism as a system and mode of domination has at various points employed these religions as justification to impose relations that benefit a self-ascribed elite at the expense of the majority ‘other’. As a major aspect of the divide-and-rule strategy, the religious dynamic has served as a tool to pit once united peoples against each other, often to devastating outcomes. The endpoint being a weakened society unable to resist foreign economic and sociopolitical exploitation.

There is the faulty notion that the colonial missionaries were mutually exclusive from the mercenaries and pirates who spearheaded colonising campaigns. With the coming of Christian missionaries into pre-colonial Nigeria, local traditions were demonized, and a policing effort was made by the colonial administrations to suppress African spiritual practices and beliefs. Favor and political rewards were given to those who adopted and promoted the imported practices, traditional strategies of conflict resolution were put aside, and the social role of preachers, and evangelists became more pronounced.

In northern Nigeria, the Hausa people are known to have had traditional religions revolving around animism called Bori or Maguzanci^[1]. By the turn of the 19^th century in 1803, the Islamic cleric and philosopher Usman Dan Fodio had founded the Sokoto Caliphate and declared jihad on the Hausa kingdoms that existed in present-day northern Nigeria and south of the Sahara. The political power centralized by the Sokoto Caliphate became manifest through the imposition of Islamic law as the governing framework over the defeated kingdoms of Hausaland. This also had an undeniable influence on existing culture and ways of life. Following the introduction of Islam, the practices of Bori and the associated priestesses and guides fell to obscurity because pre-Islamic traditional religion was regarded as pagan and backward.

By 1903, the Sokoto Caliphate had fallen to British conquest, and in the process of building colonial administration, the political decision was made to avoid religious conversion because Islam had already replaced traditional religion as the imported and influential system^[2]. The British gambit in this context was to allow the northern and southern protectorates to develop in theologically opposing directions of Islam and Christianity, respectively, as they had done between northern and South Sudan. This basically ‘installs’ a foundational fracture in social cohesion that has then been exploited for economic or geopolitical reasons since then.

So, Where are Things Now?

Fast-forward to contemporary Nigeria, and we see the enduring influence of the demographic manipulation from the 20^th century is still in play. It is like the figurative control panel of divide-and-rule had been handed over to the neo-colonizers and collaborators by the imperialists, thus leaving average Nigerians at the mercy of politicians who leverage religious faith to cause divisions and tension especially during elections. Seeing how religion is a unifying factor, many people also take it up as an aspect of their identity, and this brings an ethnic angle to the dynamic because of how culture can intertwine with religion. The exploitation of these underlying complexities manifests as ethnoreligious violence, and it is important to note that conflating religion and ethnicity^[3] is a key tactic of social engineering used by colonial powers.

The influence of religion and the manipulation of narratives as justification for imperial goals is more apparent than ever. Nigeria has once again found itself in the crosshairs of the United States government. On the one hand, it is baffling that belligerent and threatening foreign policy is freely promoted^[4] on social media, on the other hand, it is not particularly surprising because in Nigeria the issue of insecurity is politicised and leveraged as a divide-and-conquer strategy^[5]. With these factors in place, there is greater potential to influence public sentiment on various topics.

The US president announced that Nigeria is being designated a ‘country of particular concern’, threatening that he was directing the Pentagon’s Department of War to draw up plans for military intervention, if the Nigerian government continues to allow the killing of Christians. This development is not out of the blue, because the first Trump administration in 2020 had declared Nigeria a country of particular concern on matters of religious freedom. However, that designation was dropped in the following Biden administration because it was not a politically expedient campaign for the democrat wing of the US empire.

The violence wrought on Nigerians by extremist mercenaries and insurgents affects everyone across the board regardless of ethnicity or religious affiliation. From destroyed communities to displaced families, the impact of insecurity and terrorism disrupts the livelihood and development of Nigerians. The failure of the Nigerian government to protect its citizens is one thing, and people on the ground know that local politicians are not above exploiting the same religious divides for their own gain, putting lives and property at stake. In the Nigerian context, divide-and-rule tactics of domination are employed by neo-colonizers and imperialists alike.

Manipulate the Narrative

Political violence as a result of religious polarization is an ongoing issue and for the narrative of genocide against Christians to hold sway, there are several distortions in play. Firstly, insurgent groups like Boko Haram, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), or Al-Qaeda affiliate - Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) are framed in the media as anti-Christian. Second, ethnically Fulani (and religiously Muslim) herders that clash with farmers in the middle belt of Nigeria are framed as the primary aggressors in these conflicts, and the farmers are then coded as Christians on the receiving end of anti-Christian violence. Third is that the victims of farmer-herder violence, and terrorism in the north are conflated as one to paint a picture of high death tolls driven strictly by hatred of Christians, and Christianity at large.

In reality, the insurgents operate mostly in the north of Nigeria which is majority Muslim and the victims of terrorism and displacement there are disproportionately Muslim. Looking at the farmer-herder crisis, the driving factor of clashes is more of resource scarcity like access to water, grazing area, or farming land than religion by itself. This much was expressed^[6] by the Africa advisor for the Trump administration, Massad Boulos.

To explore the background of the ‘Christian genocide’ narrative in Nigeria, one must observe the activities of US-based Christian media, Christian think tanks and lobbying groups. Within this context, there is the notion of ‘religious freedom’^[7], a liberal principle which has been a foundational element of colonial and imperial adventures. From the moment the US government launched its ‘War on Terror’ the implication was that Islam, and its extremist adherents were to blame for the violence suffered by Christians, the most precious of which resided in the United States. The 9/11 attacks in the US marked the upward swing of this narrative, and by the mid-2010s, Islamic State (ISIS) violence in Iraq and Syria fueled US right wing efforts to declare that religious freedoms were being denied from Christians, and they were the major victims of persecution worldwide.

The Gatestone Institute^[8], the Heritage Foundation^[9], and the Hudson Institute^[10] among others started publishing articles (circa 2018 to 2020) that pushed the ‘Christian genocide’ framing which allows the first Trump administration to officially designate Nigeria a ‘country of particular concern’ (CPC). These designations do not happen without recommendations from the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which is a government body that makes findings on religious freedom but can’t set policy, and the Office of Religious Freedom (ORF) which is in the State Department and holds policy-setting authority. In essence, the think tanks and lobby groups drum up the narrative spin, then the USCIRF and the ORF coordinate official policy to label target countries, then the president blurts^[11] out insults and military threats on social media. Voilà!

The Nigerian government has fallen short of its mandate to protect its citizens, and it is about time Nigerians themselves learned ways to hold those in power accountable for these expensive shortcomings. Electoral politics has failed more than enough times, neoliberalism has proven itself a backward ideology of socioeconomic organization, those in positions of leadership have lost all credibility in the eyes of discerning Nigerians, and the military establishment remains more of a threat to the average Nigerian, than to the perpetrators of wanton violence across the country. Even with all these problems, there is no grounds for a pretentious government like the United States to impose ‘solutions’ to a multidimensional problem that was arguably installed by its imperial predecessors the UK, and France.

The Geopolitics of It All

Everywhere the United States has employed its military to ‘save’ a vulnerable minority group of the day, it always ends up in disaster for every party involved except US corporations. From Iraq, and Syria, to Afghanistan, and Libya, in each of these places where the US government has intervened directly or by proxy, religious minorities have all been suppressed and persecuted more so because of the US’s involvement. Christians are being killed in the genocide in Gaza, orthodox Christians are being killed and displaced in the Russia-Ukraine war, and the common thread here is that the US is involved by sponsoring the apartheid state of Israel, and by spearheading the NATO effort to support Ukraine against Russia. Alas, there are no calls for the plight of Christians in these regions.

The objectives of the United States and its newly minted Department of War here are clear. Like France and the UK, the US military influence in the region is on the decline especially as Mali and Burkina Faso expelled the French military. The US also lost mining concessions and security partnerships to China and Russia, as Niger for example ended the security partnership that enabled the US military to build and operate a large drone base in Agadez. The Alliance of Sahel States (AES) is another critical development that represents an expression of African-led self-determination, and this is unacceptable to powers like the United States and its allies.

In threatening to militarily intervene in Nigeria, the US is hoping to achieve multiple objectives in one swoop. Firstly, the threat is pressure on a client government to properly play its role as imperial sock puppet of the region vis-à-vis countering the influence of the AES. Second is the potential to open a new front of destabilization to ensure easy or cheap access to natural resource deposits in Nigeria since China has massive influence over supply lines of strategic minerals like lithium, cobalt, copper and other such metals. Then there’s the angle of finding a new launch point for AFRICOM where covert or overt operations can be carried out.

All in all, the point is…

Religion is an undeniably important aspect of human spirituality, and in many cases, this sanctity has been abused by imperialism. It is important that Nigerians gain the necessary political education to identify and resist cynical initiatives coming from local politicians, powerful think tanks, or predatory governments. The bottom line here is that Nigeria is large and populous but politically fragile. The age-old tactic of divide to conquer is effective, and Nigeria is vulnerable to it especially when considering surrounding factors like economic hardships, regional insecurity, and a compromised ruling class. The ethnoreligious angle of political trickery is one that many Nigerians are aware of because it has been exploited numerous times in the same manner. The imperialists have shown themselves as relentless in the pursuit of domination, Nigerians must not fall for these schemes. This may not be the last time it is attempted.

Otobong Inieke is an independent researcher based in Southern Nigeria. His work revolves around geopolitical analysis focused on Africa. He is also affiliated with The Movement for African Emancipation (MAE) and his work has been published on platforms such as Hood Communist, The Black Agenda Report, and Orinoco Tribune. Views and perspectives are further expressed on the 'Find the Signal' podcast.

Endnotes