Thank you American Atheists for the opportunity to address this convention, my first time doing so and hopefully not the last. I speak here not in my capacity as a board member of Humanists International but as a concerned atheist committed to seeing the flourishing of freethought around the globe. I speak here as a fellow human being determined to slowly undo whatever obstructs the free exercise of reason, the rights and liberties of non-believers, and the realization of a more secular world.

When I founded the Humanist Association of Nigeria in the 1990s, American Atheists was among the organisations that I contacted. Most of what I read about atheism and freethought mainly concerned what organisations like yours were doing: promoting the separation of church and state and equal rights for believers and non-believers. For many years I corresponded with the leaders of American Atheists and I received your magazines and read about your activities, including the challenges you faced trying to grow and organise atheism here in the US.

So make no mistake about it: what you do here in America, here at the American Atheists, inspires many people across the globe, including atheists who live in places like Sudan, Malaysia and, Egypt where atheism and humanism dare not mention their name.

While we may be continents apart, our destinies are shared. Christian nationalism is not only a threat to democracy and human rights here in the US but also in Uganda, Nigeria, and Ghana. Many African countries face additional threats from traditional religious superstitions, Islamic nationalism, and separatism. That is why atheists need to rethink and reenvision how they organise around the globe, bearing in that atheism is not American. Humanism is not Western. The exercise of freethought is universal. The yearning for freedom without favour and equality without exception is global.

The world is undergoing rapid change. And as the world is changing, so must the way atheism is organised. The world has become more interconnected than at any other time in history. And as the world interconnects, so must the way we build freethought communities. Today more than ever, we must commit to promoting atheism without borders and secularism beyond borders.

As you are aware, two years from now, American Atheists will be hosting the World Humanist Congress. This international event brings together atheists, humanists, rationalists, secularists and, other non-religious persons from different parts of the world. The Congress provides an opportunity for non-theistic people to meet, socialise, discuss, and debate issues of common interest and concern. I am looking forward to that event and I believe that you are looking forward to it, too. As we convene here and warm up to congregate in Washington, D.C. in two years, let me share my hopes for the future and my thoughts on and visions for a new direction for the atheist and humanist movement.

When our forebears met in 1952 and founded the International Humanist and Ethical Union, now Humanists International, they knew that the values of church/mosque-state separation, the civil liberties of non-theists, and the freedom of religion and from religion would only grow and flourish on Earth if the non-religious constituency connected and networked beyond national borders. They knew that for atheism and humanism to flourish in their fullness, their outlook must be global and become transnationally effective. They knew that in the face of global inequalities, resources must be shared. They knew that freethinkers must be creative and innovative in organising. They knew that atheists must cooperate for their shared vision of shared prosperity to be realised.

But seven decades and two years after that meeting, the atheist/humanist movement has largely been consigned to one part of the world, the West, while religion rages with force and ferocity across the globe. Non-theism has not become a transnational effective alternative to dogmatic religion and supernaturalism as envisaged by our founders. And one of the regions where the atheist/humanist movement has fallen short of its promises is my continent, Africa.

Religion persists in Africa, not because Africans are hardwired to be religious, not because Africans are notoriously religious. No, not at all. Religion persists not because there is something uniquely fulfilling in the Christian or Islamic faith. Religion is widespread in Africa because an effective alternative to these religions is missing; because the atheist and humanist movement has failed to organise and address the needs of the non-religious constituency in the region.

Faiths that Western and Eastern religious imperialists introduced to much of Africa centuries ago still have the adherence of the majority of the population because the atheist and humanist movement has been unable to match the power, influence, and funding of the Euro-American evangelicals and their Arab, Middle Eastern Islamic counterparts. Based on my experiences over the years, I am offering a pact for a global rebirth of the atheist/humanist movement. This pact provides a pathway to a better and more exciting future, allowing us to use what is right with our organisation to fix what is wrong with the movement. It is based on the ideas that we can do more and we can do better, that we are in this together, and that no matter how we choose to describe or identify as non-religious, we are one family and one community. 

The statistics say that the non-religious constituency is nonexistent in most African countries. Why? Because in these places, blasphemy and apostasy laws exist and force millions of atheists and humanists to live in closets and pretend to be religious. Millions cannot express their non-belief in the Christian or Islamic god due to fear of being attacked, persecuted, imprisoned, or even murdered with impunity. I offer you a pact that will help us confront this disturbing trend and ensure that the next 70 years of atheism will not be like the last. This pact, which enables the connection and representation of the known and the unknown atheists, the visible and the invisible atheists, and the recognised and the forgotten members of the global atheist/humanist community, rests on four pillars: education, leadership, cooperation, and community, 

The atheist/humanist movement values education and has in its ranks distinguished scientists, philosophers, and other intellectuals. Unfortunately, the educational facility has been underutilised. Those who are non-religious or are indifferent to religion seek knowledge and nourishment for an ethical and responsible life. We must commit to delivering an effective educational program that satisfies this need.

For too long we have operated on the assumption that those who come on board and join the movement know enough and understand enough about who we are, how to be, and how to belong locally and internationally. This way of operating has yielded limited results. It has not worked for the movement in Africa and the global south. It has not made us internationally effective. We can no longer continue to operate on the assumption that everyone is educated or knowledgeable enough to be and to belong. Joining the movement should include a process of education about the movement, including information about what we do, how we live, where we live, the challenges we face in various places, and how we are grappling with these challenges beyond the concerns and interests of our local groups. We need to put in place mechanisms for continuous international education and reeducation.

Part of education entails doing away with those crude stereotypes of people from other races and regions, abandoning those prejudices and misrepresentations that have hampered our ability to galvanise energies, seize opportunities, and organise atheists and humanists in other parts of the world. At the moment, we know very little about ourselves and others, and because we know very little, we are less involved and less engaged. So we have to commit to establishing and strengthening departments that address local and international educational needs.

This pact also urges the atheist movement to invest in leadership training programs because there are many problems around the world today that, to be solved, require the kind of leadership that humanists, atheists, and secularists can provide. We can no longer continue to operate as a global organisation and community without having in place resources to train our future leaders. We need to establish and run faculties that train and graduate spokespersons and representatives every year. The atheist and humanist movement needs an international program that equips aspiring leaders with communication, conflict resolution, team building, and problem-solving skills, as well as other competencies that they need to be effective representatives. The issues that atheists face in the world today are complex and sometimes life-threatening. They require expertise and the atheist movement cannot continue to rely on ad-hoc, self-appointed, and self-taught leaders to handle these issues.

For too long, we have operated on the assumption that anyone who says ‘I am a humanist leader’ is a humanist leader. In many cases, an email or postal correspondence makes one a leader to be entrusted with local and international roles and responsibilities. We need to review this approach and put in place mechanisms that will attract our best and brightest to lead. Unfortunately, what we have at the moment is not working. In Africa, most young people are unemployed or underemployed. They are looking for paid employment, not volunteer jobs and opportunities. Most young people cannot volunteer. It is the same with the elderly. Most of them retire into poverty and bankruptcy. Tired and demoralised, they cannot offer free services. So we cannot sustainably grow based on ad-hoc leadership and volunteerism. 

We need a strategy to incentivise leadership that aligns with the needs and realities in Africa and the global south. We need a training institute where aspiring leaders from different parts of the world can come together, learn together, and train together. This leadership school will deliver its programs online, offline, or in a hybrid form. Part of this leadership mechanism includes mobilising resources to sponsor, support, and manage aspiring leaders. I am working with Kevin Jagoe and the education department of the American Humanist Association to put together an international leadership course that meets the needs of our time. And today I urge you to support this initiative and help give the atheist movement the leadership that it deserves.

There is very little cooperation in the humanist/atheist movement. And it hurts. As a global minority, atheists must collaborate to maximise their limited resources, grow, and become a force to be reckoned with. If we understand each other and have programs where our leaders learn and train together, then we can work together more efficiently. Our organisations can more effectively collaborate. There is very little cooperation in the global atheist movement because there is limited understanding. Because we know very little about one another, we do very little with one another. Because there is little cooperation, the global atheist/humanist movement has yet to live up to its full potential.

Because we know very little about ourselves—about our needs, intentions, and aspirations—and because we sometimes rely on prejudices and stereotypes to relate to one another, we trust very little and we care very little. And with a low level of trust, a robust community cannot be formed. The challenges that atheists and humanists face in other parts of the world seem very distant and are designated as ‘their’ challenges, not ‘ours’. But if we learn to see the problems of other atheists as our problems, their risks and dangers as the risks we all face, then their progress becomes our progress. If we learn to treat each other with love and respect rather than contempt and condescension, we will forge a sense of solidarity that will be the envy of the world.

25 years ago I travelled for my first World Humanist Congress in India. Since then, I have been to many countries in Europe and Asia, and I have been to Australia and New Zealand. I have been to over 15 states here in the US. I did not go to these places because I wanted to go on a holiday. I did not go to these countries because I wanted to use the opportunity to migrate or seek asylum. I travelled to these places because I was driven by a burning desire to understand, connect, and collaborate with people of like minds. I travelled to these places to forge communities of reason, compassion, and critical thinking. That yearning persists as I speak here. That desire burns in the hearts and minds of other atheists and humanists that I have met in the past 28 years, including those in countries where the statistics claim that there are very low percentages of non-believers.

This century beckons on the atheist movement to respond to the yearnings and aspirations of freethinkers and secularists across the world with a renewed sense of hope, vision, and commitment. Let us be that generation that worked and connected atheists in ways that had never before been the case. Let us be that generation that forged a sense of solidarity too often missing, too often ignored, but so much cherished. Based on a commitment to all and responsibility from all, let us work to fulfil that need to belong and to be loved that lurks in the hearts and minds of non-theists across the globe.

There are risks and dangers associated with atheism. It is in addressing these risks that the atheist movement has grown. The risks that atheists face in places like Sudan, Malaysia, Afghanistan, and Indonesia are not dangers that we should flee from but threats that we must confront and face down. They are opportunities that we must seize, to test the power of our ideals and values. Let us answer this call to duty, rally our energies, and realise a more effective global atheist movement. Let us overcome the complacency that has limited the growth and development of freethought and stop making excuses. This is our chance. Our moment is now. Let us provide leadership and forge a sense of fellowship and community that befits an outlook which finds its plenitude in this one life that we have. 

Atheism in the 20th century was judged based on the progress that freethought and secularism made in the West. In this century, it is different and it will be different. Atheism and freethought will be judged based on the progress we make in places like Africa, Papua New Guinea, Bahrain, and the rest of the global south. And this progress can only be realized if atheists do more and do better. And we will!

Further reading on freethought in Nigeria

The price of criticising Islam in northern Nigeria: imprisonment or death, by Emma Park

Secularism in Nigeria: can it succeed? by Leo Igwe

Protecting atheists in Nigeria: the role of ‘safe houses’, by Hank Pellissier

How I lost my religious belief: A personal story from Nigeria, by Suyum Audu

The post A new pact for atheism in the 21st century appeared first on The Freethinker.

There are many ‘harams’ – things that are ‘religiously forbidden’ – in Nigeria: Boko (‘Westernisation’) is haram, atheism is haram, agnosticism is haram, secularism is haram.

This article is a brief story of how I fell into one of the harams, that is, how I became non-religious. To begin with, I will briefly explain how I became a Christian, my experience as a Christian, and finally, how I became non-religious, and the experience of being non-religious in Nigeria.

The thing led to my becoming first a Christian and then non-religious was the quest for meaning, a quest which originated from my horrible experience of poverty, hunger and starvation, and from the kind of person I am.

As a child, I was told there is God and that he is all-knowing. Inquisitive by nature, I asked my teachers, ‘How can he know all things? Do you mean God can hear and see my thoughts?’ Instead of an answer, I was shunned and treated like a fool for my supposed childishness and ignorance.

I was born in Kayarda-Banram, Bogoro Local Government Area, in Nigeria’s north-eastern Bauchi State, to a family and community racked by poverty and starvation. I have been through the experience of starving for days and have also seen others, especially the aged, starve to death. I have seen others hire themselves out to work for a whole day for a measure of grain, while still others around me have died from common diseases such as cholera, malaria and typhoid. I have heard the materially poor describe their brutal experiences of injustice and exploitation from their oppressors, the rich. Some rich men used their wealth to bribe the authorities and falsely claim the land belonging to the poor. Confronted with these horrible evils on a daily basis, I began to ask myself the age-old question: Why do people suffer, and what is the solution?

This question became the turning point in my life and the beginning of my quest for meaning and truth.

In search of an answer, while herding cows, I found a worn and torn book on the ground. I could not tell what it was about because it had no cover and most of its contents were removed or worn out. This book led me to the Bible, or the ‘Good Book’, as I preferred to call it. On one of the pages of the torn book was a subject that captured my attention: ‘The Book I Like the Most’. Reading through the remaining pages under this heading, I saw that the writer was talking about the Bible. He (the writer) gave the impression that the Bible was the Book of Books and contained an answer to every question. Before this time, although my parents were Christian, I had been ignorant of Christianity and never devoted myself to any Church activities other than, at most, the weekly Sunday worship.

Curious about my discovery and anxious for an answer to my questions, I borrowed my parents’ Bible and began to read it day and night with passion. Reading through the books of the Torah and taking them literally, I thought I had found the answer to my question: that sin, as Christianity proclaims, is the problem. Man must learn to blame himself for the problem of evil and suffering. Convinced by this answer – which I only later realised was simplistic –, I became a zealous Christian and a local evangelist, preaching repentance and a law-abiding life as the solution to this problem. I prayed and fasted, sometimes for days, sometimes for weeks. I read the Bible every day, and never failed to go to the local shrine (the so-called ‘house of God’) and to participate in all its activities, such as choir, Bible study and Sunday School. I even founded a Bible Study Group.

I once led my group members out to Fulani settlements to evangelise [the Fulani are a primarily Muslim people in West and Saharan Africa]. After ‘preaching’ to one or two of them, a certain Fulani man confronted us. He could not believe that we had made the decision to preach to them on our own, that we were ‘sent’ to do so. He carried a cutlass to attack us with, but somehow changed his mind, and instead decided to report us to the community leaders. After he did so, we were fined three thousand naira! The news went viral and we, especially myself, became an object of mockery in the whole village, until I regretted my actions.

To demonstrate my commitment to my newly discovered faith, I decided to become a pastor for life. I had previously wanted to study biotechnology and atomic and nuclear physics, but I dropped all of these because the Good Book says, ‘Everything shall pass away’ (Matt. 24; Rev. 21). I was discouraged. I felt there was no point committing my life to something that would soon pass away.  I started to lead the life of a faithful Christian and pastor. As described above, I became more zealous and holier than the pastors in our village, so much so that everyone around called me a pastor, and I was happy. I conducted visits, gave alms, and did other ‘good deeds’. Every morning I made sure I went round the neighboring houses and greeted everyone. I dedicated my life to supporting the aged and the needy. I shared my food and served some with firewood to warm them, especially in the harmattan season.

In preparation for becoming a pastor, I decided to take a a Diploma in International Missions and Evangelism (2009-2012), and a BA in Theology (2014-2018). I served with the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN) as a Local Church Council (LCC) pastor for eight months in 2013 before I left for my undergraduate degree at the Theological College of Northern Nigeria. While studying Theology at TCNN, I became more aware of numerous theological issues and debates over issues such as the Trinity, Christology, the tribe of Israel, and the inspiration and infallibility of the Bible.

After years of studying and wide reading, I found myself questioning religion and all the beliefs which I had once held as the absolute truth. I found myself asking the big questions: Does God exist? Did he create the world? How did we come here, and why? What is man? Is man inherently evil or good? What is final Destiny? What does it mean to be human? Will the future still be human? What kind of knowledge will guide us?

I began to think that these questions could not be answered by religion. No discipline or institution has the perfect answer to our questions and the solution to our problems. At best, religion is a social construct and a psychological tool for manipulation and enslavement; at worst, it is the problem which itself needs to be solved. We are humans, and there is no hope of becoming some sort of superhuman sinless beings. We are not created by gods and meant to become (like) them. To pattern one’s life after what one does not know and cannot be is not only mad but heinous.

I began to doubt many Christian teachings, such as the nature of the Trinity. Yet there was one more revolutionary question that led me to break with religion: the question of whether Adam was the first human on earth, and whether he even existed historically.

After researching into ancient history and mythology, I realised that the evidence indicated that the creation story, the very foundation of Christian theology, was a myth. It followed that the doctrine of the creator God, Satan, heaven and hell, sin, and the entire concept of Christology, were all a theological fabrication. I began to see religion as a game of deception and control, a system of manipulation, exploitation and enslavement, and a great brain robbery.

I therefore started to hate religion. However, at first, knowing the attitudes to it in my immediate community and country, I kept my views to myself. I struggled with this for years until I discovered that concealment was psychologically more stressful than I could bear. Therefore, I took the risk and went public with my non-belief through Facebook.

My posts attracted attention and concern from many people (Christians, of course) across the country – so much so that I received calls from numerous people, some of whom I knew, some whom I did not and who would not reveal themselves to me, asking to be sure if I was actually the one posting anti-religious posts or if my Facebook account had been hacked. When I confirmed to them that I was the one, some lamented bitterly, some offered strong warnings of God’s pending judgement against my life, some just hung up in anger and never called me again or responded to my calls. Many ‘unfriended’ me. Some of my Facebook posts were adduced by TCNN as evidence of my unbelief or apostasy.

My decision to go public via Facebook caused a predictable response: although not physically persecuted, I was shunned by many friends, near and far, and openly discriminated against. No one wanted to associate with me any more – even some of my relations and close friends from Bauchi and Plateau states. I had become an abomination and an object of mockery. To convince others to avoid and hate me too, some of my former friends, online and in person, began a campaign of name-calling and slander: I was the ‘Devil Incarnate’, ‘Anti-Christ’, ‘Apostate’, ‘The Fool’, ‘Atheist’. All this began in 2020 and is still happening.

In 2021, I was served with a letter by TCNN asking me to leave and never come near the college premises again, because my presence there, as a non-religious person in a religious setting, was too conspicuous.

As if that was not enough, the college is still holding back my graduation certificate and, in 2023, wrote to COCIN, the Church that endorsed my application form for admissions to TCNN in 2014, to ask them to monitor me for a year. If I recant my agnosticism, they may consider giving me my certificate. If I remain an agnostic, they will withhold it, on the grounds that the certificate is given only to those who are found ‘worthy in character and in learning’. In other words, they are using religion and religion alone as a yardstick for measuring character and intellect. I have never harmed anyone or committed any crime. Yet despite this, and despite my studies, my lack of belief may mean that I am not considered ‘worthy in character and learning’.

None of this comes as a surprise: the society I live in is narrow-minded. At the national level, although Nigeria is in theory a democratic society, which should mean that citizens have the right to believe what they want as adults, in reality, religion dictates and controls every aspect of life. It almost seems like religion is the only national value, and the only law-abiding citizen is the religious one. Religious conformity is mistaken for goodness. Those who are non-religious – the freethinkers, agnostics, atheists and non-conformists – are all shunned and treated as socially and psychologically deviant citizens who deserve to be eliminated from society. They are neither listened to nor supported by society in general, nor by the government and religious institutions in particular. Rather, they are hated and persecuted, in the same way as I was by TCNN and individuals.

I tried to establish an open, non-religious society on several occasions, but was unsuccessful – owing both to a lack of financial support and to a lack of interest among friends, colleagues and others.

In 2022, I worked as a teacher of English Language and Literature in English for Senior Secondary students at a local college. In early January 2023, I started to teach the Hausa language to Junior Secondary students at another school. However, in July 2023, I resigned from my post so as to dedicate myself fully to my independent research and education. I hired a hall and opened a Centre for Creative Dialogue and Critical Reflection in Jos, Plateau State. I put up a sign outside in case anyone was interested, but no one was. I began to print and share posters, but again, no interest. It seems to me that critical thinking and questioning are ‘haram’ in Nigeria.

Even so, I still currently work as an independent research scholar in the humanities and the social sciences, although not affiliated to any research body or non-religious society. Given the lack of interest in my work, I no longer work at the Centre, but at home in my room, in Jos.

As a non-religious person, I now view life differently from how I did before. I approach it more philosophically, from a human-centred perspective. In my opinion, meaning is not to be found in religion. Rather, meaning in our lives derives from knowing that religion is an illusion, that morality depends on human reason, and that we have only one life to live. 

The post How I lost my religious belief: A personal story from Nigeria appeared first on The Freethinker.

In northwest Nigeria last year, Deborah Yakubu, a college sophomore, was stoned and beaten to death and her body was publicly burned, after she ‘blasphemed’ against Islam in a WhatsApp group. Usman Buda, a 30-year-old butcher, was stoned to death by a mob in June 2023, after he was accused of blasphemy in the same region. Mubarak Bala, President of the Humanist Association of Nigeria (HAN), was arrested over three years ago in the north-central city of Kaduna after he posted ‘sacrilegious’ statements on Facebook. He remains in jail today, in the Counter-Terrorism Unit of Abuja Prison; their main foe in inter-jail soccer matches, he tells me amusedly, is the Armed Robbery Unit.

Atheists in Nigeria are in constant danger of losing their jobs, families, freedom, human rights, and their very lives. Belief disagreements in this nation of around 220 million (and growing) frequently explode into violence: over 6,000 Christians were hacked to death in a recent 15-month span, and the bloody trend seems to be escalating. 

Security is needed. What’s the solution?

Humanist Mutual Aid Network (HuMAN), a not-for-profit organisation based in the US, has responded to this emergency by launching three ‘Safe Houses’ in Nigeria to provide sanctuary to non-believers. Abuja Safe House, Maiduguri Safe House, and Minna Safe House are secular oases for groups of 5-7 individuals, but the structure and goals of each heretic home vary widely.

Abuja Safe House (also known as ‘KaZoHa’) is now the irreligious residence of five women, one of whom is Amina Ahmed, Mubarak Bala’s wife. The couple are pictured in the photo at the beginning of this article, which was taken in late 2019 when the sanctuary was launched, just a few months before the arrest of Bala, who was its director. There is also a three-year-old boy at the Abuja Safe House: Sodangi, Mubarak and Amina’s son. Amina and the rest of the freethinking quintet survive financially with proceeds from their Fruit Juice Bar, funded by HuMAN. They also manage an online community centre for Mubarak Bala’s international support, and they guarantee shelter to atheists and LGBTQ people who are fleeing or hiding from persecution. 

Abuja Safe House residents are state-protected because Abuja, the nation’s capital, strives to be secular and tolerant. The godless group is also out of the closet, and comfortably active on social media. Any drawbacks? Yes. They do not own the property: it is leased annually, the fee paid by Humanists International (HI), which also provides legal aid to Mubarak Bala. 

Bala maintains near-daily contact with Abuja Safe House. He envisions its future goals as: ‘1) financial independence, 2) acquisition of a permanent non-rental residence, 3) expansion to accommodate more humanists at risk, 4) establishment of Abuja Humanist Primary & Secondary Schools for kids – like Tai Solarin’s Mayflower School.’

Maiduguri Safe House is a completely different establishment because it is situated in the Boko Haram-infested northeastern state of Borno, where publicly declaring oneself as an ex-Muslim would be suicidal. The six residents here are all young men, living together in happy liberation from suffocating Islamic rituals and the narrow eyes of suspicious neighbours. 

On their HuMAN webpage they have their faces blurred, they are all anonymous and the safe house itself is hidden behind a tall brick wall to guarantee safety from neighbours suspicious of their lack of conformity with Islamic ritual. On the plus side, the Maiduguri atheists own their property, purchased partly with funds generated from their World Peace Internet Café (funded by HuMAN), an ice cream factory (also HuMAN-funded), and a still-in-progress campaign to pay for the roof. 

Maiduguri Safe House is one hundred per cent male, high-security, closeted, and financially stable. This is in sharp contrast to the female, out-of-the-closet, state-protected, but economically tenuous abode of Abuja Safe House. According to ‘SMK’, a resident here, the top goals of this safe house are offering refuge to humanists who are physically threatened because they have abandoned religion; providing safety to ‘Almajiri’ (children abandoned by their parents at Islamic centres); creating strong unity between local humanists by living together; and teaching one another vocational skills which they can use to become economically self-reliant. 

Minna Safe House, in Niger State, is a third option that expresses HuMAN’s most idealistic vision. The seven housemates here include men, women and children with various stories: they may be LGBTQ people, ex-Muslims or ex-Christians, well-educated or illiterate, but they are all bound together by their renunciation of blind faith. As in Abuja, the Minna Safe House residents are out-and-proud atheists, with their smiling faces posted on HuMAN’s website, and their namesakes and occupations listed. As in Maiduguri, the Minna residents enjoy home ownership: the four-bedroom unit was inherited by HuMAN’s Africa Director, Saliu Olumide Saheed. Like Abuja and Maiduguri, the Minna Safe House gains income from its HuMAN-funded businesses: a grocery store (co-funded by Atheism United) and a barber shop. 

The ambitions of Minna Safe House exceed those of the other two sanctuaries, though, because it aims to also be a beloved community centre. Future plans include a community garden, with produce shared with needy locals in weekly community meals. Additionally, its Humanist Preparatory School is generating enthusiastic local support; the school will emphasise English learning, because that skill is highly desirable for Nigerian employees. Minna Safe House is also setting up a Humanist Clinic, organised by a housemate who is a trained healthcare worker, to provide first aid assistance and medicine to the local community. The clinic also plans to serve nearby refugee camps and rural villages; last year it delivered interventions for malaria, cholera, polio, hepatitis, HIV, scabies and dental care. 

Saliu Olumide, who serves as the Minna Safe House director, strives to operate the sanctuary on the basis of humanist and mutual aid values. ‘We are creating an egalitarian community,’ he says, ‘where everyone works to contribute to the common good of one another. What we have, we will use together and the excess will be stored for rainy days. No one will be left out, we will attempt to even out the system of greed that’s made life difficult for the oppressed and rural in Nigeria. It is our ultimate goal to succeed until we are role models for anyone who wants to create an active, successful community.’

Maiduguri Safe House also conducts multiple humanitarian projects, focused primarily on the Almajiri. Last winter, with HuMAN funding, the Maiduguri crew built a wood-and-aluminum-siding structure that protected 120 Almajiri from the seasonal wet and cold, and it supplied them with wool blankets, mosquito nets, and free computer classes. With the help of HuMAN funding, they have also been able to feed widows, provide medical assistance to refugees, help widows start sustainability projects, and operate an internet café and an ice cream factory.

The Humanist Mutual Aid Network (previously known as the Humanist Global Charity, and before that, as the Brighter Brains Institute) is not solely dedicated to providing safe houses in Nigeria. It also supports its mutual aid partners in Chad, Zambia, Uganda, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, the Philippines and the USA (Appalachia). Many of these efforts are collaborations with other groups like Atheist Republic, Burmese Atheists and the Humanist Alliance Philippines, International.

Is Nigeria doomed to always be dangerous to freethinkers? Safety varies geographically – the Muslim north is more dangerous than the Christian south – but ostracism exists everywhere. Atheists are often disowned and disinherited by their families, and barred from schools and employment. Safe Houses (on the HuMAN model) can simultaneously deliver freedom of belief, freedom of sexual preference, and freedom from poverty, prejudice and violence. Moreover, if they deliver humanitarian services to their neighbours, atheists will be regarded as, so to speak, ‘good without god.’

Perhaps Safe Houses can be set up throughout Nigeria, running from north to south, to serve as an ‘underground railroad’ for non-believers? Mubarak Bala would like to see many more established – perhaps one in every Nigerian state.

Bala hopes he will be released from prison soon. Whenever that happens, his initial plan ‘is to unite all the secular groups in Nigeria, such as Lagos Humanist Assembly, Atheist Society of Nigeria, Hausa Atheists, Northern Nigerian Humanist Association, Tarok Thinkers, Proud Atheists. I hope to bring them all under one banner, under HAN or ASN or Nigeria Secular Movement.’

After that, his long-term goal is ‘to lead Nigeria politically, but I have to adjust to the new reality, that I am too lone a voice, too vulnerable to dare the standards. I need to be diplomatic now for our community to be safe. I hope this new strategy works. Of course, my eventual aim is to be in a position to end religion permanently, without being killed in the process.’

Further Freethinker articles on Nigeria:

The price of criticising Islam in northern Nigeria: imprisonment or death 

Secularism in Nigeria: can it succeed?

Mubarak Bala: update on a ‘blasphemer’ in Nigeria

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The post Protecting atheists in Nigeria: the role of ‘safe houses’ appeared first on The Freethinker.

Nigeria’s secularism is faltering. Sadly, it holds little hope for Africa’s largest democracy, especially for its minority (ir)religious and belief groups. Section 10 of the nation’s 1999 constitution guarantees the separation of church (mosques, shrines, temples) and state, stipulating that ‘the Government of the Federation or of a State shall not adopt any religion as State Religion.’ But Nigeria’s secular character has so far been a paper tiger, due to the intense and pervasive mixing of faith and politics at all levels. In everyday governance and policymaking, the influence of religion is overwhelming.

The concept of ‘secularism’ is not mentioned in the constitution. This omission was a deliberate compromise to appease the Islamic establishment, which detests the idea of secularism and has been persistently antagonistic towards the notion of Nigeria as a secular state. This antagonism has increasingly polarised the country politically, because the idea of a secular state is distrusted and misunderstood as meaning an atheist state or a state which is configured to erode the influence and authority of religions.

With hindsight, the omission of secularism from the constitution was an early indication of what lay ahead: a battle for religious supremacy, a superimposition of religion, and a contest of religious politics. Nigeria after independence has been characterised by a fierce struggle by the two main religions, Islam and Christianity, to control and dominate the country’s political and social organisations. Internationally, Christian Nigeria has been backed by the Christian West, and Islamic Nigeria buoyed by the Islamic East. These two foreign faiths were introduced by Westerners and their Arab counterparts, who for centuries used to enslave or colonise Africans. For both Westerners and Arabs, imposing their faith on their African subjects formed a part of their imperialist agenda. 

Western missionaries and Arab or north African jihadists treated traditional beliefs and institutions with contempt, designating other faiths, including local customs and practices, as fetishistic, idolatrous, abhorrent and primitive. After centuries of deploying physical and structural violence against traditional religions, Christianity and Islam have become the dominant faiths, and their privileges well established. Centuries of Christian and Islamic indoctrination have turned Nigeria into a ‘chrislamic’ stronghold: out of a population of around 218 million and counting, roughly half are Muslim and half are Christian (the precise numbers are uncertain and subject to constant fluctuation). Powerful Christian and Muslim authorities perpetuate a tradition of sociopolitical contempt towards other religious and non-religious traditions.

Non-believers are some of those most affected by this religious power game. This category includes Nigerians who identify as atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers, sceptics, rationalists, or as religion-free individuals. Until recently those of no religion in Nigeria, who probably constitute about one per cent of the population, were largely invisible. This low number can be explained by the stigma attached to the open and public profession of atheism and irreligiosity, and to a deliberate policy of the suppression of irreligiosity. In general, the religious politics that prevails in Nigeria stifles the rights and liberties of unbelievers. In particular, the religious establishment continues to misrepresent the country’s (ir)religious demographics. For instance, there will be no question about religious affiliation in Nigeria’s 2023 census. So the 2023 census would not highlight the religious or irreligious demographics and the shifts that might have taken place since the last census.

Meanwhile individuals who identify as non-theists, or agnostics, or non-believers in the faith of Christianity and Islam, run the risk of suffering systemic discrimination, exclusion and persecution. As the case of Nigerian humanist Mubarak Bala has demonstrated, those who openly declare their lack of religious belief or dare to question the religious establishment risk being attacked, imprisoned or killed.

The imprisonment of Bala was a huge blow to secularism in Nigeria. It was part of a wider move by the religious and state authorities to clamp down and suppress irreligious expressions and manifestations. Bala’s case is an eloquent testimony to the systematic oppression of non-religious people. Nigerian Muslims are allowed to make statements that disparage non-believers, and to criticise unbelief as a part of their profession of faith: they may exercise their rights to freedom of religion or belief and freedom of expression. Unfortunately, in parts of Nigeria like Kano, where Muslims are in the majority, political Islam rules, and Islamic theocrats deny non-believers their basic rights and freedoms with impunity. 

Humanists in Nigeria are still campaigning to overturn Bala’s sentence and get the court to throw out a judgment that criminalises non-religious identities and views. Humanists are mobilising to ensure that religious and belief equality applies in Nigeria. The legal team has lodged an appeal urging the court to review and throw out the judgment. But appeal court processes are usually slow, and even slower if the process, as in this case, challenges the religious status quo. Judgment is expected in 2023 at the earliest.

Amidst this hostile environment, the Humanist Association in Nigeria (HAN), of which I am founder, organised its first naming ceremony in Benue state, central Nigeria, in September. Religious organisations have long had a monopoly over ceremonies and celebrations, including weddings, funerals, and coming of age ceremonies, but humanists are now beginning to change the narrative and to demonstrate that people can celebrate and mark events in their lives without religion. While some non-religious people do not care about celebrating the landmarks in their lives, or do not worry if such ceremonies are conducted in religious ways, many humanists yearn to mark these rites of passage in ways that align with their humanist principles and values.

However, humanists in Nigeria face opposition from families that boycott or threaten to boycott such celebrations. Religious families regard non-religious ceremonies as evil, devilish and satanic. The situation is worse in Muslim-dominated areas, because political Islam leaves no dignified political space for irreligious or ‘Kaffir’ ceremonies under sharia law. The HAN is campaigning to combat religious prejudices and misconceptions about non-religious ceremonies. It is working to dispel the stigma linked to parenting and family living without god.

In the same vein, I have been joined by a Zimbabwean humanist, Tauya Chinama, to direct another secular program, the Ex-cellence Project. This project provides social and psychological support to non-religious ex-clerics in Africa, including ex-priests, seminarians, novices, pastors, evangelists, apostles, deacons, nuns, monks, sisters, hermits, rabbis and imams. People who exit or are exited from the clergy in Africa, no matter what the religion, suffer stigmatisation. They are treated as outcasts and failures who cannot succeed in life. Ex-clerics find it difficult to integrate socially due to narratives that make them feel inadequate. Here is one story from an ex-Catholic priest, Onyeka Okorie, in Nigeria: 

‘I left the priesthood in 2015. I was warned that I could not marry because any woman who married me would incur the wrath of God. I married my beautiful wife in 2016 without a single hitch anyway. They said my new family was already cursed as we had dared God, and that we would not have a child as a consequence. My wife was pregnant immediately after our marriage. They said she would not have a safe delivery, as God had to make a name for himself by punishing my wife with maternal death at childbirth. Yet my wife gave birth to our first child in 2017, our second in 2019, and our third in 2021. All of this happened without a single health or delivery issue. Now they say that my family has only three girls because God must avenge his transgressors, and therefore we will not have any male issue. What they do not know is that, as a humanist, I strongly believe that all children are equal human beings. To reject a child because it is the ‘wrong’ sex would be a gross violation of the rights of the child. I love my wife and my three beautiful daughters. They all give me joy and fulfilment that cannot be measured or valued. This part of my life story proves that religious superstition is no better than feeble myths, no matter who peddles it. Humanity reigns supreme.’

As this former Catholic priest observes, life is not easy for those who exit a religious profession, especially in a religious country like Nigeria. Ex-clerics need to be psychologically strong to cope with the pressures.

The situation is even worse for those who are driven out of the profession against their will. Former religious workers, including Sunday school teachers or those who are expelled from religious training, are demonised. The religious public sees them as existentially damned and doomed, because they have disobeyed God or have been rejected by Him; as a result, they may suffer psychological trauma. Any existential challenge that they face or encounter is seen by many Nigerians as a form of punishment from God.

In a country where religions exert considerable influence over how the state is governed and how society is organised, it is a challenge for non-religious ex-clerics to live normal lives. It is even more challenging for them to speak publicly about their lack of religion. There are no mechanisms to support and assist them as they try to reintegrate into society.

Hence ex-clerics have to resign themselves to a life of loneliness. They often suffer from mental health issues and sometimes fall into alcoholism. I have been told about some ex-clerics who suffered depression, committed suicide or attempted to do so following the exit or expulsion from their clerical job or training. In the face of such odds, clerics who lose their faith frequently feel unable to leave their profession, even when they have lost their belief.

The Ex-cellence Project exists to fill an important need, namely the provision of psycho-social support to non-religious ex-clerics in Africa. The project has been formed to correct misconceptions about clergy work and training, about exiting and being exited from the clergy, and about life after leaving religion and religious work. To further the aim of this project, a WhatsApp group has been formed which comprises non-religious ex-clerics from Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and Germany. Virtual events will be held to give members opportunities to share their experiences and struggles living as non-religious ex-clerics in a friendly and welcoming environment. As an ex-cleric from Zimbabwe put it, ‘This initiative will help those who are stuck in religious robes against their conscience due to fear of being judged harshly by the toxic religious environment.’

Organisations like HAN and the Ex-cellence Project are a welcome development in a religiously charged and challenging environment like Nigeria. They indicate that humanism has a future here, and that some hope exists for a secular Nigeria. But these initiatives can only survive if the continual attempts by Christian and Islamic theocrats in Nigeria to overrun the country’s secular constitution and democracy are successfully resisted, and if religious tyranny and totalitarianism are deftly contained.

As it stands, Christian and Islamic theocrats are tightening their grip on the political economy of Nigeria. They have been unrelenting in stifling the rights and liberties of humanists, in eroding the secular character of the Nigerian state, and in suffocating the physical and virtual spaces for non-religious and irreligious constituencies. How far humanists succeed in combating these theocratic tendencies will determine if secularism holds any real hope for unbelievers in one of Africa’s most religious countries.

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The post Secularism in Nigeria: can it succeed? appeared first on The Freethinker.

The Freethinker reported in March on the humanist Mubarak Bala’s impending trial for blasphemy in Kano, northern Nigeria. His bail application was rejected by the Kano High Court on 4th April. On 5th April, he suddenly, and without previously notifying his legal team, changed his plea to guilty. The judge then sentenced him to 24 years’ imprisonment. This sentence, in the view of James Ibor, the head of Bala’s legal team, is probably unlawful, and the case is being appealed. In the meantime, Bala remains in custody in Kano State Prison.

The High Court of Abuja had granted a previous bail application back in December 2020, but its order for Bala’s immediate release had simply been ignored in Kano. At the bail hearing in Kano, his team ‘argued for bail extensively,’ Ibor told me via Zoom. ‘But unfortunately the court denied it on the ground that he would not be safe if he was released.’

This explanation, in Ibor’s view, was disingenuous. ‘They were using his incarceration as a total tool to compel him. The inmates actually told him while he was in custody that the court would not grant him bail – and that’s what happened.’ Leo Igwe, a co-founder of the Humanist Association and leader of the campaign to free Bala, agrees. Had the authorities really been concerned for Bala’s safety, he argues, ‘they shouldn’t have transferred him to Kano [from Kaduna] in the first place, where he wasn’t living and where even the so-called offence didn’t happen.’

The bail hearing took place on a Monday, and the trial on Tuesday. The previous Friday, just before Ibor himself arrived in Kano, the prosecution filed two amendments to the charge sheet, increasing the number of charges from ten to 17. Immediately after the bail application had been refused, they filed yet another amendment to increase the number to 18. ‘Strategically, we chose not to object,’ says Ibor, ‘because they were all of them full of repetitions and grossly defective.’ Instead, they decided to proceed to trial, in order to avoid any further prevaricating by the other side.

It came as a shock to Ibor when Bala suddenly changed his plea to guilty on the morning of the trial: ‘I was frustrated and confused.’ He managed to persuade the court to stand down for 15 minutes while he consulted his client privately. Bala then explained that he had ‘lost faith in the judge and the justice system in Kano’, and was worried that if he won his case, he would be killed.

Ibor argued that the press were there, and members of the international community (the US in particular had sent trial observers). The judge, he told Bala at the time, might ‘caution himself and try to do the right thing’. Bala seemed to be persuaded to change his plea back to not guilty. ‘But unfortunately, when we got back to court, he again repeated that he was guilty,’ says Ibor, ‘So at that point, there was nothing I could do.’ According to Ibor, Bala later explained that he wanted his legal team to be safe as much as himself: ‘There would likely have been riots if he had been acquitted.’ As Igwe puts it, ‘he said that there was no way they could have won in Kano and remained alive.’ It is abundantly clear that Bala’s change to a guilty plea was a matter of expediency only, necessitated by the fear of violent reprisals. ‘There is nothing to apologise for, absolutely nothing,’ says Igwe.

Ibor argues that the sentence imposed on Bala was ‘unknown to law’. According to him, the maximum sentence should have been five years, under the two provisions Bala was charged with, sections 210 (‘insult to a particular religion’) and 114 (‘acts calculated to cause a breach of public peace’) of the Kano Penal Code.

For the record, the Freethinker is now able to publish the key posts on Bala’s Facebook page in April 2020 on which the prosecution relied, as quoted on the charge sheet (a public document):

1. ‘There’s no difference between the prophet TB Joshua (S.A.W) of Lagos State and Muhammadu (A.S) of Saudiyya. The one in Nigeria is better because he is not a terrorist.’

[T.B. Joshua was a Nigerian pastor and televangelist. ‘S.A.W.’, conventionally used of Mohammed, means ‘peace and blessings of Allah be upon him’; ‘A.S.’, meaning ‘peace be upon him,’ is conventionally used of lesser prophets. Bala seems to have reversed the two. This statement, in Hausa, was posted on 25th April 2020 – three days before his arrest.]

2. ‘Islamic religion is kafirci against the original Kano religion of Tsumburbura mai Sawaba, (the goddess that was worshiped at sometime). May Alliya (the goddess) guide Kano people.’[‘Kafirci’ means ‘unbelief or a state of non-belief’; ‘describing Islam as kafirci delegitimises it,’ according to Igwe. This statement was originally in Hausa.]

3. ‘Muslims are about to start fasting to the God that refused to eradicate their poverty despite the fact that they prayed 17 times everyday. How i wish Allah exist.’ [Originally in Hausa.]

4. ‘There are no flying horses, there is no Allah, Islam is exactly as Boko Haram practices it. Whoever believes religion has been duped.’ [Originally in English.]

5. ‘If you can’t take the blasphemy against Islam, criticizism (sic) of its doctrines, this page is not for you. I have not even started ooo’ [Originally in English.]

According to the transcript of the trial (a public document), the judge, in his ruling, stated that [sic]:

‘No one stops him [Bala] from any religion, but he should understand that where his intent stops, the intent of another person start, therefore the intent that he is thinking that he has to say whatever he wants to say or put anything is not absolute. He should be careful. There are a lot of people that may have the same ideology but not expose themselves like that.

‘He should go and believe in his own faith and allow others to believe in their own faith. There is no compulsion in religion not to take of insulting any particular religion for that matter.

‘I hope his stay in correctional center would sure serve him a great lesson and others.’

Under Nigerian law, a defendant who pleads guilty should usually receive a reduction in sentence. But that did not happen, says Ibor. ‘The judge told me that I was lucky that he had not imposed a death sentence’ – even though this would have been unlawful, as Bala was being tried under customary (secular) and not sharia law, as he was not a Muslim.

Igwe argues that the length of the sentence is ‘unprecedented’ for these offences. ‘But it is all part of the calculated attempt to make sure that this guy is shut out, he’s behind bars, and that a message of oppression is sent to people like him.’

It was particularly difficult for Bala to be in prison during Ramadan. According to Ibor, there were ‘about 1700 inmates, all of them Muslims, fasting. He’s the only one who eats, and they constantly remind him that he’s an unbeliever and he deserves to die.’ He has also experienced threats, as well as ‘bullying from the very day he was admitted into the facility.’

Bala has maintained his humanist convictions. But he has faced immense pressure, even in matters as personal as trying to give his wife, Amina Ahmed, a hug when she came to visit. For strict Muslims, public displays of affection are not allowed, even between couples. When the pair stood up to hug, the inmates ‘shouted down at them and warned him never to try it,’ says Ibor, ‘Why should he hug? He said, “it’s my wife,” they said, “how dare you?”’ Amina now faces the prospect of continuing to bring up their son, Sodangi, alone, possibly for the whole of his childhood. ‘I think she was devastated by the judgment,’ says Igwe. ‘But she’s finding a way to cope with this, what has been a very difficult situation for her and the baby and the entire family.’

Prison conditions have been tough in other ways too. Bala has had access to writing materials, and communicated regularly with Ibor and others. But some of his letters never arrived, or were censored. He has shared a cell with up to nine other inmates. Sometimes, says Ibor, it has been ‘a very tiny cell where it’s even difficult for him to move around or adjust. He has had to stay in a particular position for a long time because there are so many people in it.’ As for the food, ‘it is really horrible.’

‘His rights have been so clearly violated in so many different ways,’ says Andrew Copson, president of Humanists International, which has supported Bala and his family since he was first detained in April 2020. ‘Every aspect of his case is a disgrace’ – from the denial of access to justice, to the displacement from Kaduna, where he was arrested, to Kano, to the ‘overblown’ charges.

On 12th May, just over a month after Bala’s trial, Deborah Samuel, a Home Economics student and Christian in Sokoto State, also in Nigeria’s Muslim north, was beaten to death and set alight by Muslim fellow students who accused her of blasphemy. According to Reuters via the Guardian, a student posted an ‘Islamic’ message on her department’s WhatsApp group. In response, she posted an audio recording that protested against the use of the group for religious broadcasting, and allegedly contained ‘blasphemous comments on the prophet of Islam’. The Peoples Gazette, an Abuja-based paper, shared a chilling video of a man apparently confessing to Samuel’s murder and showing a matchbox which he appears to say he had ‘used in setting her ablaze’. When two suspects were arrested, a mob of ‘Muslim youths’ rampaged through the city ‘lighting bonfires’ and demanding their release.

The suspects are currently awaiting trial; a large group of Muslim lawyers appeared in court to support them in their first appearance in court. However, they have not been charged with murder, but with the lesser offences of ‘criminal conspiracy and inciting public disturbance’. This has been criticised by the Nigerian Bar Association, which called on the Sokoto State Government to bring ‘charges that truly reflect the gravity of the situation’; the Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, described them as ‘watery charges’.

There is a disquieting contrast between the harsh treatment of Mubarak Bala, held in custody without trial for nearly two years and now sentenced to twenty-four, and the lenient treatment of Deborah Samuel’s alleged killers. This difference reveals how far fundamentalist Islam is entrenched in the culture of northern Nigeria, and underlines its proponents’ utter disregard for human dignity or rights. It has been argued that Samuel’s case is part of a trend of Islamist persecution of Christians in both the north and the south. However, as Bala’s case demonstrates, the persecution is not confined to Christianity, but extends to anyone who dares to criticise Islam or resist its influence.

To some extent, the problem of illegitimate influence on the judiciary is one that affects the whole country. ‘I want to be very frank with you,’ says Ibor, ‘Nigeria has no respect for the fundamental rights of citizens. What plays here is usually politics and religion, and religion itself is politics. The judiciary of Nigeria is not independent.’

Yet the idea that blasphemy against Islam in particular is a crime that merits death – which it is not under the secular Nigerian constitution but only, at most, under sharia law – is shared by high-ranking clerics. In an interview with the Nigerian newspaper The Punch, Professor Ibrahim Maqari, the imam of the National Mosque of Abuja, said that ‘she [Deborah Samuel] deserves death, there is no doubt about it … Nobody can insult the prophet the way the girl did and think they can go untouched.’ Although Maqari argued that it should be the state authorities who carried out such punishments, he also said that ‘extrajudicial killings’ were ‘something that we cannot stop so far the government does not fulfill its responsibilities.’ In other words, the authorities have a ‘responsibility’ to execute blasphemers; if not, do not be surprised if someone else does it for them.

In cases like Bala’s, Ibor stresses the role that the international community can play: ‘They have a lot of influence on Nigeria.’ Andrew Copson is one of those who have been involved, on behalf of Humanists International, in lobbying the UK government. Along with the US, Norway, and others, the UK has raised Bala’s situation with the Nigerian government through diplomatic channels. While the US has led the efforts, Copson stresses the ‘impressive communal effort that has been exerted on Mubarak’s behalf.’

Yet diplomatic pressure is probably only a short-term solution. After all, Western governments and NGOs may be able to help individuals like Bala, but it is difficult to see how much influence they can exert over a country of 216 million people speaking around 500 languages, and one in which Christian, Muslim and local religious traditions are deeply engrained.

On the other hand, it is people like Bala who have been starting, very slowly, to open people’s minds and change the culture from within, by holding meetings in person or online, campaigning through groups like the Humanist Association of Nigeria or the Atheist Society of Nigeria, and above all, criticising religion, at great personal risk. That is why his ongoing detention is such a blow for freedom of conscience and expression in northern Nigeria: the incipient humanist movement has lost its leader. Bala’s treatment demonstrates how firm a grip the religious authorities, backed by the threat of mob violence, continue to have over the justice system and public opinion.

The conclusion is that future progress in this region is likely to come only through a long and painful process of attrition. In the meantime, an innocent student has been brutally murdered, a man faces decades in prison for criticising an idea, and Sodangi is growing up without a father. In countries where Islam has political power, the price of dissent is high indeed.

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The post The price of criticising Islam in northern Nigeria: imprisonment or death appeared first on The Freethinker.

This article provides an update on Bala’s situation. I spoke via Zoom and email to Leo Igwe and to Amina Ahmed, Bala’s wife and mother of his son, Sodangi.

Update on the update – 25th March 2022

This article was first posted on 19^th March. It was removed on 21^st March at the request of Humanists International, on behalf of Bala’s legal team. It is now being reposted with the removal of information which the lawyers fear might endanger Bala’s safety, including the dates of the bail hearing and trial, the name of the prison in Kano where he has been held for over a year, and the list of the ‘blasphemous’ statements with which he is being charged. (The Freethinker had not previously been informed that posting this material might affect Bala’s situation.) According to Emma Wadsworth-Jones, Humanists At Risk Coordinator,

‘The information contained on the dates of the hearing is sensitive and could put the lives of Mubarak and his legal team in jeopardy. The dates of the hearing have purposefully been withheld to prevent vigilantes in Nigeria from taking matter into their own hands. Additionally, the publication of the text of his posts…before the hearing is liable to inflame already high tensions.’

The request demonstrates just how perilous Bala’s situation is, both for him and even for his lawyers, as long as he remains in Kano. The article below gives further details about how difficult it is to be a non-Muslim in northern Nigeria. It also considers why Bala might have annoyed the authorities so much – not just through mocking and criticising certain beliefs and practices of Islam on social media, but through inspiring a sort of humanist awakening.

It is with a heavy heart, however, that I have removed the text of Bala’s ‘blasphemous’ posts. The Freethinker has a long history of resisting censorship of supposed blasphemies. It is a matter of pride that our first editor, G.W. Foote, went to prison in England for using satire to question Christianity in this very paper.

For several years now there has been a trend, not just in Nigeria but also in Europe, of silencing those who dare to criticise Islam, or even show materials criticising it – one might think of Charlie Hebdo or Samuel Paty in France, as well as the Batley Grammar teacher in England, whose very identity has been erased from the public record.

It is ironic that the ‘blasphemous’ statements which Bala made of his own free will, and for which he has been suffering for nearly two years, must be suppressed by those defending him, because they fear that republishing the statements before his trial would provoke his opponents into further acts of aggression and injustice. Where will all this end?  

Arrest and detention

Bala has been detained, on the charge of blasphemy in relation to some Facebook posts, since 28th April 2020. On 28th April, he was arrested and put in a police cell in Kaduna state; on 30th April, he was transferred to to the State Police Command in neighbouring Kano, where he was held in solitary confinement and incomunicado. At some point thereafter he was transferred to a prison in Kano State. He was not able to meet with a lawyer until October 2020. After a series of legal battles, a judge in Abuja, the federal capital, granted an application for Bala’s immediate release on bail on 21st December 2020. (The order for release on bail can be viewed towards the bottom of this report by the Foundation for Investigative Journalism.) However, he was not released. Formal charges against him were only issued on 3rd August 2021. While in prison, he was, in September 2021, denied access to medical treatment for high blood pressure. Humanists International have provided him with legal support, and maintained a record of his case as it develops.

The effect of prison

Neither Igwe nor Bala’s wife, Amina Ahmed, was able to attend the arraignment. However, according to one source, provided on the condition of anonymity, Bala ‘looked emaciated…he has not been well taken care of.’ The conditions in the prison are ‘awful’, says Ahmed. Her husband has had difficulties in accessing not only healthcare but even food while in prison. ‘Our prison service has a history of not just poor treatment, but also in terms of denying people who are detained their basic rights,’ says Igwe. The Humanists wrote to the director of prisons, as well as to Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission, to try to ensure that the necessary treatment was provided to Bala. Over such a long period, however, it was difficult to keep up the pressure on the authorities consistently. ‘Immediately there’s no pressure,’ says Igwe, ‘The whole thing goes back to the status quo.’

How Bala’s detention has affected his family

Mubarak Bala and Amina Ahmed were married in August 2019. Ahmed gave birth to Sodangi in Abuja in March 2020, just six weeks before his father was arrested. She had just arrived home from hospital, and was still recovering from a caesarean section and postpartum trauma, when Igwe called her to say that her husband had disappeared. At first she did not believe it. ‘I said, maybe they are going to release him that evening, or after some days.’ In the event, it was eight months before she was able to see him – in prison.

The nearly two years have been an ordeal. To start with, there has been the uncertainty of not knowing what will happen to Bala. In addition, the stigma associated with being an atheist is such that Ahmed has only felt able to tell a few of her closest friends what she has been going through. She worries that other colleagues will be ‘judgemental’ rather than sympathetic, and will take the view that her husband ‘should be tried like everyone else, if he offended anyone.’

Sodangi has hardly seen his father in the first two years of his life. When his mother took him to visit Bala in prison in November 2021, she says, ‘he was just staring at his father and he didn’t allow him to touch him. He was just running away from him and was crying.’ At home, her mother has moved in to help her with the baby. Ahmed has also received financial support from the Humanist associations. ‘I’m so grateful because I didn’t believe that Mubarak and I would feel loved like this.’

Both Ahmed and Bala were brought up in traditional Muslim families. These days, she too identifies with humanist values, ‘like not discriminating against people, not judging people based on their belief.’ It is characteristic that Bala’s own best friend from childhood should be a practising Muslim. ‘Mubarak’s situation pains him, too,’ Ahmed says. ‘He doesn’t judge Mubarak, because he knows that he is a wonderful person.’

The charges

The charges against Bala were brought on an application by the Chief State Counsel of Kano State Ministry of Justice on behalf of the Attorney General. The charge sheet, which is dated 23rd June 2021, and was made available to the Freethinker, lists ten separate ‘heads of charge’ against Bala. (We cannot comment on the accuracy of these allegations.)

All the heads of charge involve posts that Bala is said to have made on his Facebook account in April 2020. These posts, the prosecution alleges, contained a total of five distinct statements that supposedly blasphemed against Islam. Three were in Hausa, a regional language, and two in English; some appear to have been posted more than once.

By posting these statements on social media, the prosecution alleges, Bala ‘insult[ed] the religion of Islam its followers in Kano State, calculated to cause breach of public peace and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 210 of the Penal Code [of Kano State].’ Elsewhere on the charge sheet, the statements are described as ‘insulting the Holy Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W), the religion of Islam and its followers in Kano State which excited contempt of religious creed’ or as being ‘contemptuous to the religion of Islam’.

The Nigerian Criminal Code Act (s. 204) provides that the offence of ‘insult to religion’ is punishable by up to two years in prison. According to Amnesty International, the Kano State Code has a similar provision (the Freethinker was not able to access the Code). The matter is complicated by the fact that, in northern Nigeria, sharia law operates in parallel to customary, or secular, law.

Bala, as a non-Muslim, is being tried under customary law. On this basis, if he is convicted, the period of his past detention could be sufficient to discharge the statutory penalty. ‘But nobody knows whether that will satisfy the Islamic Establishment behind his arrest and detention,’ says Igwe. Under sharia law, Bala would potentially be liable to much harsher penalties, even up to execution.

The sharia courts in Kano do not shrink from imposing harsh penalties for blasphemy on those within their jurisdiction. This is shown by two cases from August 2020 – a few months after Bala’s arrest. A sharia court sentenced an Islamic gospel musician, Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, to death for allegedly saying that the founder of the Islamic Tijjaniya sect was ‘bigger than Prophet Muhammad’; the same court sentenced a 13-year-old boy, Umar Farouk, to ten years’ imprisonment with menial labour for using ‘foul language against God’ during an argument with a friend.

A retrial of Sharif-Aminu’s case has since been ordered, while Farouk’s conviction was overturned by a higher court. But others may not be so lucky. Even if the justice system does not harm them, there is always the risk that the mob may take matters into their own hands – which is one of the concerns in Bala’s case.

Islam in northern Nigeria

The reasons underlying Bala’s treatment in Kano are complicated. Historically, the north of Nigeria has been Muslim-majority since 1804, when the ulama (learned religious scholar) Usman Dan Fodiyo led a jihad against the Hausa kingdoms of western Africa and established the Sokoto Caliphate there. The British conquered the caliphate in the early 1900s. When they unified Nigeria as a single Colony and Protectorate in 1914, they retained a division between the northern and southern provinces. The Muslim influence in the north and the Christian influence from missionaries and other Europeans in the south, in line with colonial policy, increasingly took the place of traditional religions – at least officially. Nigeria achieved independence in 1960; however, the historic divisions between Muslim north and Christian south persist.

The reality, says Igwe, is that ‘you cannot oppose Islam and succeed politically in the north.’ Not only are the political elite themselves Muslim, but in one way or another, they all ‘draw their political base from the ulamas and from the religious establishment.’ Indeed, it would be ‘political suicide’ for them to go against the ulamas’ dictates. ‘And so the ulamas would be the ones who would be saying that Mubarak Bala should have a serious punishment.’ Bala’s own father is an ulama. In 2014, he had his son placed in a psychiatric ward, where he was detained against his will for 18 days, in order to supposedly ‘cure’ his atheism. It is understood that the two are still estranged.

A humanist ‘awakening’ in northern Nigeria

Before his arrest, Bala worked as an engineer for an electricity company in Kaduna, commuting in from Abuja, the federal capital, where he lived with his wife. He spent his spare time campaigning and trying to raise awareness of ‘the excesses and extremism that are embedded in the Islamic religious practice in northern Nigeria,’ says Igwe. ‘He was trying to lead an awakening of the people.’ Bala worked particularly hard to ‘mobilize young people and get them to begin to openly express critical views with regard to religion, Islam, jihad, Boko Haram, and the very disturbing way religion mixes with politics and with every other aspect of life in the region.’ He held face-to-face meetings, but was increasingly moving to online campaigns because of the risks of ‘hostility’ associated with personal appearances.

Bala’s championing of atheism and humanism was having some success, especially on social media. A 2018 report by Al Jazeera claimed that atheism, although still largely an ‘underground movement’ in Nigeria, was ‘increasingly reported among millennials.’ Bala was the only atheist interviewed who was willing to let Al Jazeera use his real name. ‘When he was arrested,’ says Igwe, ‘Somebody called me on phone and told me that there were thousands of [atheists] in Northern Nigeria, and many of them were actually finding a voice. They were finding a platform based on what Mubarak was doing.’

Bala’s success was the problem. ‘They [the Islamic authorities] just don’t like that name, “atheist”,’ says Igwe. ‘It invokes a lot of anxiety and hostility in people.’ There was sufficient concern about the atheist movement that on 12th September 2019, as Igwe reported in The Maravi Post, three academics held a seminar at Bayero University, Kano, on ‘Social media and the rise of atheism among the Muslim youths in northern Nigeria: causes, consequences and recommendations’.

Although the seminar was held at the ‘Centre for Islamic Civilization and Interfaith Dialogue’, as Igwe pointed out, ‘it is not clear how the centre goes about the interfaith dialogue because no evidence of interfaith communications exists on their web site’ – let alone communication between believers and atheists.

After Bala’s imprisonment, Igwe recalls, there was a sense of ‘relief across the Islamic community.’ His opponents took to social media to celebrate his punishment. Twitter posts carried vicious messages. ‘Blaspheme against our Prophet is a capital offense,’ wrote one user calling himself Kawu Garba, ‘And if he’s allowed free without penalty we will kill him.’

Despite the unlawfulness, not to say inhumanity, of Bala’s treatment by the secular authorities, there was a deafening silence from the religious contingent. ‘No one in his local area in Kano has called for his release,’ says Igwe. ‘I think that they’re silent because they have accomplished their goal.’

‘Insulting religion’

On the face of it, Bala is being prosecuted for a pure crime of words, which do no harm to any living individual or any identifiable group. It is bad enough that ‘insulting religion’ is an offence on the Nigerian statute book; the Kano authorities seem to have pursued Bala with vindictiveness as well as utter disregard for due process. In all the circumstances, it seems clear that they perceive social media posts as a real threat to the authority of Islam in their region.

Even in countries where insulting religion is not (for now) a crime, this charge is often made against people who mock religious ideas or practices that they consider absurd. ‘Insulting a religion’ is also speciously equated with the nebulous charge of insulting the worldwide population of its adherents. In the UK, this kind of rhetoric was used in the Batley Grammar case.

As the detention of Mubarak Bala shows, to criminalise speech about a controversial subject – whether religion or anything else – is to hand power to those who want to impose their views on others. Those who have reservations about free speech in countries like the UK might ask themselves what they would do in Bala’s position.

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