WCC NEWS: “Negative Solidarity”: a challenge to peace and development processes in Nigeria

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World Council of Churches - Feature

“NEGATIVE SOLIDARITY”: A CHALLENGE TO PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT PROCESSES
IN NIGERIA

For immediate release: 29 September 2010


By Aneth Lwakatare (*)

Geneva, 28 Sept. -- “We will not have the peace we are looking for if 
we
continue to practice negative solidarity,” said the Rev. Dr Johnson
Mbillah while addressing participants of the World Council of Churches
(WCC) UN Advocacy Week on Tuesday 28 September.

For Mbillah, this “negative solidarity” manifests itself in ways that
divide rather than unite Nigerians and impacts all levels of society
including how people are elected to public office.

Mbillah, who is the general advisor to the Programme for 
Christian-Muslim
Relations in Africa (PROCMURA), one of the pioneer interfaith
organizations in Africa, was addressing the issue of ethno-religious
politics in Nigeria during a session on Conflict and Violence in 
Nigeria.

The session also included Fr Matthew Kukah, a Catholic Priest and 
public
affairs analyst, who talked about the impact of violent struggles over
control of natural resources. Such struggles are a significant part of
conflict and violence in Nigeria.

In southern Nigeria’s oil-rich delta region where there is high
unemployment and poverty, there has been ongoing violence between the
government and armed militias who have been disrupting oil production 
and
conducting kidnappings for ransom.

In the northern Nigerian Plateau state, there has been violence based 
on
land rights issues as well as ethnicity and religion.  Earlier in 
2010,
nearly 500 people were killed near the city of Jos.

Nigerians have grouped themselves based on religion, ethnicity or 
regional
origin, thus creating different identities, Mbillah said. “The problem
that we face in Nigeria is that we do not identify ourselves as all 
being
Nigerian, but rather identify ourselves first by either the ethnicity 
to
which we belong or which religion we practice.”

Ethno-religious politics have limited Nigerians’ freedom to be 
elected to
office and have affected the right to vote for others, based on 
whether
one is located outside his original state. In addition, he said, other
unwritten understandings among Nigerians limit the political and 
social
rights of groups.

It has become very difficult to categorize the conflicts in Nigeria as
“ethnically based” or “based on religious difference” or both, he
continued.

“Election should not be based on the question of one’s religion or the
tribe to which one belongs. But this is something hard to practice in
Nigeria,” he said. “Religious-tribalism is what hinders us. There is a
need to take as our examples countries like Senegal and Malawi: 
countries
where people do not vote just because some politician belongs to a 
certain
tribe or religion, but because he or she is Sudanese or Malawian.”

“Instead of using religion as an instrument to transform life for the
better, we have used it to transform life for the worst,” said 
Mbillah.
He called on all Nigerians to be conscious of the current situation 
and to
take appropriate action, regardless of tribe or religion.

“The tendency is aligning with your religion or ethnic group, even 
when
they are wrong. ‘Negative solidarity’ is what prevails in Nigeria,”
he said, identifying this as a tremendous challenge for the peace and
development processes.

Interreligious dialogues between Muslims and Christians – on 
confliction
prevention, peace-building and living together regardless of religion 
and
tribe – are among the efforts that churches and leaders of other 
faiths
have adopted in addressing the conflict in Nigeria, Mbillah affirmed.

“Inequitable distribution of resources should be mentioned when 
talking
of the current conflict situation in Nigeria,” Kukah said. “Violence
has occurred when Nigerians struggle to gain independence by asserting
their will to take control of their nation’s resources, yet in turn 
they
receive only a negative response from the government.”

“Good governance is what we are all looking for,” was one statement
from the session on which the two speakers firmly agreed.


* Aneth Lwakatare is a WCC communications department intern from 
Tanzania.


The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, 
witness 
and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship 
of 
churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 349 
Protestant, 
Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 560 
million 
Christians in over 110 countries, and works cooperatively with the 
Roman 
Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Olav Fykse 
Tveit, 
from the [Lutheran] Church of Norway. Headquarters: Geneva, 
Switzerland.



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