29 January, 2025
by Mohammed Bello Doka
If religion truly does not matter in Nigerian politics, then the panic, outrage, sermons, street protests, editorials, and diplomatic whispering that greeted the Muslim–Muslim ticket in 2023 remain the clearest proof that Nigeria lies to itself. Nigerians were not asked to interrogate competence, records, or ideology. They were mobilised on fear. They were told the republic itself was at risk because two Muslims dared to share a ticket. That moment settled the matter beyond debate: religion matters in Nigeria. What came after—being lectured to “move on” and “focus on competence”—was not statesmanship. It was gaslighting.
Religion was not a side issue in 2023; it was the argument. The Muslim–Muslim ticket was branded exclusionary, dangerous, and provocative. Clerics framed it as a spiritual emergency. Civil society framed it as a democratic threat. International audiences were primed with narratives of impending theocracy. None of this centred policy. It centred identity. And it worked. As Samuel Huntington bluntly observed, identity becomes most powerful when people believe power is slipping from their hands. That is exactly what happened.
Then the election passed, power was secured, and the sermon changed. Suddenly, religion was crude. Identity was backward. Muslims—particularly Northern Muslims—were told to be mature, to rise above sentiment, to think of competence alone as 2027 discussions quietly began. The rules were changed mid-game. That is not moral clarity; it is convenience.
The hypocrisy is structural and obvious. It was acceptable to oppose the Muslim–Muslim ticket. Acceptable to demand a Northern Christian vice president. Acceptable to argue openly that the South-West deserves another term in 2027. Acceptable to accuse the North of domination or even genocide, often without evidence and without consequence. But when Muslims raise alarm about representation, leverage, or political survival, the labels arrive instantly: intolerant, selfish, extremist, born-to-rule. This is not balance. It is narrative control.
The claim that this is merely about “Northern dominance” collapses under scrutiny. The bias is against Islam itself. Muslims exist in the South-East and South-South—indigenous communities, converts, long-settled families—yet there is not a single Muslim governor or deputy governor from those zones. There are no Muslim ministers from those regions. Heads of agencies and parastatals from there are almost never Muslim. This exclusion is not contested. It does not provoke outrage. It is treated as normal. If inclusion were the principle, this silence would be impossible. As E. H. Carr warned, facts do not disappear because they are inconvenient.
Contrast this with the North, where Christians have repeatedly been elected governors and deputies and appointed ministers across administrations. The North has, in practice, treated religion as negotiable within elite politics. The predominantly Christian South has not reciprocated with the same openness. That asymmetry is the truth everyone avoids.
The Sharia debate in the South-West exposes the contradiction in its rawest form. Sharia is constitutionally recognised in Nigeria. It is voluntary and applies only to Muslims who choose it. No non-Muslim can be compelled into a Sharia court. These are legal facts. Yet the mere suggestion of Muslims exercising this constitutional right triggers nationwide hysteria. Christian norms—Sunday as a public holiday, Christian marriages fully recognised, Christian oaths embedded in public life—are accepted without protest. Muslim legal autonomy, even when voluntary, is treated as a national threat. Freedom of religion, it seems, is permitted only within boundaries approved by others.
This is why the sermon of “competence over religion” is dishonest in practice. No serious political group in Nigeria ignores identity while others weaponise it. None. Groups do not abandon leverage unless forced to. Competence is invoked when it advantages one side and discarded when it does not. Asking Muslims to permanently disarm while others retain identity as a bargaining chip is not enlightenment; it is political suicide.
Let it be stated without ambiguity: I do not support the APC. The party has failed Nigerians across security, economy, governance, and national cohesion. It has become a bandwagon—ideology-free, power-obsessed, intolerant of dissent, and increasingly comfortable with authoritarian reflexes. The Nigeria it governs today is poorer, more insecure, and more polarised than the one it promised to reform. APC is drifting toward a one-party instinct that should alarm anyone who understands how democracies die.
Within that context, the vice presidency offers no real protection to any bloc. Kashim Shettima’s presence as vice president does not translate into power capable of defending the interests of the Muslim North. The office is structurally weak; authority is centralised elsewhere. Representation without leverage is symbolism, not security. Lyndon Johnson’s dictum remains true: power goes where power is allowed to go. In Nigeria, it does not go to the vice president.
This brings us to a point that must be made plainly and without sentimentality. Muslims in Nigeria must stop confusing identity with protection. In 2027, Muslims should support any candidate—Muslim or non-Muslim—who is demonstrably willing and politically able to protect their interests. Identity without commitment is meaningless. A so-called Muslim who cannot even publicly affirm the faith, who depends on hostile blocs for survival, and who lacks the courage to defend Muslim interests offers no protection at all. In politics, loyalty is measured by action, not labels. A non-Muslim ally who is dependent on Muslim support and willing to defend Muslim interests is more valuable than a symbolic Muslim who is captive to other powers.
Globally, this is how politics works. American evangelicals did not preserve influence by trusting labels; they built leverage. Zionist organisations did not shape Western policy through sentiment; they organised relentlessly. In India, Hindutva forces did not apologise for identity politics; they consolidated power through it. Machiavelli captured the reality centuries ago: those who rely on virtue alone are crushed by those who understand power.
There is also an external dimension Nigerians ignore. President Tinubu has shown a desperate eagerness to please Western capitals, calibrating gestures and narratives to appeal to Judeo-Christian sensibilities in Europe and America. At the same time, groups like IPOB reportedly spend billions lobbying abroad, shaping narratives and influencing policy discussions. Northern Muslim elites, by contrast, are largely absent from this global contest—preoccupied with private accumulation, more wives, more jets, more houses in Dubai and China—ceding the international arena entirely. The implications of the Shettima question may extend beyond Nigeria’s borders, but that deserves fuller treatment elsewhere.
What is unfolding toward 2027 is not about unity slogans or moral posturing. It is about who sets the terms of power for the next decade. Silence now becomes structural exclusion later. Moral appeals without leverage sanctify losses. Malcolm X warned that power never concedes without demand; Nigerian politics has confirmed it repeatedly.
This is a clarion call to Muslims across Nigeria. See this moment for what it is. Not hysteria. Not paranoia. Politics as practiced, not preached. Unity has never been more urgent—not unity of chants, but unity of strategy. Demand reciprocity. Insist on consistency. Support candidates based on protection of interests, not sentimental labels. Reject narratives designed to disarm you while others consolidate power.
And return, finally, to the question that no one has answered honestly: if religion truly does not matter, why did the Muslim–Muslim ticket terrify you? Either religion matters for everyone, or it matters for no one. Selective principles are not principles; they are instruments of control. Politics rewards only those who recognise the instruments being used against them—and respond accordingly.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
Abuja Network News
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