MY DAILY THOUGHT AND EXPERIENCE IN NIGERIA… (RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE)

Last two weeks, I was walking down the street away from my house, heading towards the bus-stop (Pako, in Akoka) to get a bus away from home, to get a ‘life’ (just so you know, I was heading to my designer and printer’s place in Shomolu, Lagos). Truth is, I was just recovering from depression of life, which includes the following glitches; here I am idle with no job, no money to invest in my ideas and dreams (Glitz Plus Entertainment/Magazine), just graduated with a grade below my bated breath, just got jilted or left alone by my girl who I love so much but she fails to realize it, she thought I was cheating on her; well that is not the issue of the day today, the issue I want to talk about or let you guys know about is my experience and encounter while I was walking to that bus-stop in Shomolu.

Well again, here I am walking down the street, then I heard the voice of this lady saying; ‘hello, hello…’, so I looked back and saw she wasn’t talking to me or trying to get my attention, she was on the phone, apparently she had a baby at her back with a hijab on her head to show which religion she practices, Islam. So I kept on walking, and she kept walking also; then I heard her continue her conversation in Yoruba Language with the other person on the phone who I presume is her husband, because she said she was coming home and “tired of this rubbish”. Obviously, the presumed husband asked her what rubbish? Then this was what interested me and propelled me to pick up my pen to write down my thought on some salient issues affecting us as human persons/being in this country. She continued; “my landlord at my shop said he is not interested in collecting money from me to continue my stay in that shop… he said he want to give it out to a Christian, hence, I have to convert to Christianity before he gives me the shop…”. I was a little bit mad and dumb folded that, there are some people like this (the woman’s landlord) in this world and country of ours. Then I asked myself, why would we not experience religious violence and insurgency every day, when we have people like this going through this oppression and suppression every day in our society?

I am confused so very much because, education has taught me a lot about tolerance in terms of cultural and religious differences, but it is obvious that, much of our societal problems today is basically caused out of intolerance in terms of our religious and cultural differences. This woman who is a victim of religious intolerance apparently is the one feeding her husband and family, because if not, the man should be in his place of work as at that 12noon when the woman said she was coming to meet him at home. Also she is the one nurturing for her children, but now she is jobless because her extremist landlord wants her to convert to a religion she is not willing to join. What should this woman do now? Obviously she cant sue the man to court because we don’t have a judiciary system that makes sure that citizens are not oppressed, especially the minorities…

So I ask you guys, what should she do and who should she run to?