30 January, 2026
by Mohammed Bello Doka
Nigeria is once again drowning in sermons about justice, equity, and fairness. The loudest voices come from sections of the Southern media and their online echo chambers, insisting—almost hysterically—that Northern Muslims must surrender religious considerations in 2027 by dropping Kashim Shettima for a Northern Christian vice-presidential candidate. We are told this is the moral thing to do. We are told this is inclusion.
But moral arguments must survive facts. And the facts expose a level of hypocrisy and double standards that can no longer be glossed over with clever rhetoric.
Let us begin where honesty demands we begin: with the record.
Southern Nigeria has 17 states. As of 2026, all 17 governors are Christians. Not one Muslim. Not in the South-East. Not in the South-South. Not even in the South-West today.
This is not speculation. It is electoral reality.
The South-East—Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo—has never produced a Muslim governor.
The South-South—Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Rivers—has never produced a Muslim governor.
The South-West—Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Oyo—has had Muslim governors historically, yes, but currently has none.
So before anyone lectures the North on tolerance, a simple, unavoidable question must be answered:
If the South truly loves Muslims, why does it consistently refuse to trust them with executive power?
This is where the moral posturing collapses.
The South-West loves to advertise itself as liberal, cosmopolitan, enlightened. Yet the South-West is not religiously homogenous. By conservative academic estimates, Muslims make up roughly 30–40% of the South-West’s population—tens of millions of people. At worst, one in three citizens. That is not a negligible minority. That is a major political constituency.
And yet, six states. Zero Muslim governors.
If religion truly does not matter, how does a bloc that large repeatedly fail to reach the pinnacle of power? Are we to believe this is coincidence? Or is it time to admit what everyone knows but pretends not to see: religion matters deeply in Southern politics—just not in ways Southerners like to acknowledge.
The hypocrisy becomes even clearer when you examine how Muslim aspirants are treated when they dare to seek office.
Consider the recent Osun episode involving a Muslim aspirant for deputy governor. The man did not campaign on policy alone. He did not simply present his credentials. He was forced into a humiliating public defence of his faith. “Don’t judge me by my religion,” he pleaded. He highlighted that he is married to a Christian. He boasted of building and donating a church. He reassured Christians repeatedly of his respect for their faith. And then he dropped the most damning line of all: no Muslim has ever been deputy governor of the state.
Let that sink in.
In what functional democracy must a candidate apologise for his religion before being considered fit for office? When has a Christian aspirant ever had to build a mosque, marry a Muslim, or publicly disown his faith to qualify for power?
This is not tolerance. This is conditional acceptance.
Muslims are welcome in the South—as voters, supporters, neighbours, and applause lines. But when power enters the equation, the welcome becomes cautious, conditional, and often withdrawn. Social tolerance is celebrated; political inclusion is quietly denied.
Now, contrast this with the North—because this is the part Southern commentators conveniently ignore.
Northern Nigeria has 19 states. And while the majority of Northern governors are Muslims, the North currently has Christian governors as well—not by force, not by apology, not by ritualised self-abasement. Taraba, Benue, and Plateau are governed by Christians. They emerged through elections. They govern without having to downplay their faith or perform loyalty tests for Muslims.
That single fact shatters the Southern moral argument.
If the North were truly intolerant, those Christian governors would not exist. If religion were an absolute barrier in the North, Christians would never have crossed it. Yet they have—repeatedly.
So when Southern voices accuse Northern Muslims of intolerance, the accusation collapses under comparison. The North, for all its complexity, has demonstrated that religious difference does not automatically disqualify leadership. The South, by contrast, has entire regions where Muslims have never been trusted with executive power.
And yet, these same political cultures turn around and accuse Northern Muslims of intolerance for insisting that religion cannot be wished away at the national level.
This is where the double standard becomes indefensible.
In the South, religion is allowed to shape outcomes at the state level without apology. It is called democracy. It is called choice. It is called competence. In the North, when Muslims insist that representation matters—especially after winning elections—it is suddenly called bigotry, extremism, or backwardness.
Why does religious neutrality apply only to Northern Muslims?
Why must the North disarm morally while the South remains fully armed electorally?
Supporters of this selective morality often deploy a lazy rhetorical question: Why don’t you support a Southern Muslim and a Northern Christian? It sounds reasonable—until it collides with reality.
Southern Muslims are not supported even at the state level. Entire regions have never elected a Muslim governor. In some states, Muslims cannot even reach the deputy governorship without pleading for religious forgiveness. So what exactly is being proposed nationally? A theory that is never practiced locally? A moral fantasy built on political exclusion?
That is not equity. That is moral outsourcing.
The Shettima debate exposes this contradiction in its rawest form. The call to remove him is not about incompetence. It is not about corruption. It is not about constitutional violation. It is purely about religious arithmetic. And that would be an honest argument—if it were applied consistently.
But consistency is precisely what is missing.
You cannot practice religious homogeneity at home and demand religious sacrifice from others. You cannot normalize exclusion locally and sermonize about inclusion nationally. You cannot refuse to elect Muslims as governors and then claim the moral high ground to lecture Northern Muslims on tolerance—especially when the North already governs Christian states without hysteria.
That is hypocrisy. And not the subtle kind.
Religion already plays a decisive role in Nigerian politics. Pretending otherwise insults the intelligence of the electorate. The real issue is not whether religion should matter—it already does. The issue is who is allowed to consider it, and who is shamed for doing so.
Asking Northern Muslims to abandon religious considerations while Southern politics continues to reflect religious exclusion—historic in some regions, renewed in others—is not justice. It is not equity. It is not fairness.
It is a double standard dressed up as morality.
Until the South answers a simple question—why it has never trusted Muslims with governorship power across entire regions while the North has trusted Christians with the same power—its lectures on tolerance will continue to ring hollow.
Fairness begins at home. And until it does, the hypocrisy will remain exposed, naked, and undeniable.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
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Opinion