By Linus Aleke
A member of the Nigerian delegation to the Economic Community of West African State, (ECOWAS), Parliament,
Honourable Awaji – Inombek Abiante has called on the federal government to invest more in education, as part of a measure to curb the spate of religious intolerance in the country.
Hon. Abiante made this call, while making contributions at the just concluded delocalized meeting of ECOWAS Parliament Committees on Education, Science and Culture/ Health/ Telecommunication and Information Technology, in Praia, Capital of Cape Verde.
The Nigerian MP who represents Andoni/Opobo/Nkoro Federal Constituency of Rivers State, at the National Assembly spoke on the theme: ‘Religious Tolerance and Harmony; Essential factors to Development, Peace and stability in ECOWAS Region”.
He said, “93% of the Cape Verdean population are educated, a development the authorities attribute to one of the major factors responsible for religious tolerance in the country.
The high number of out-of-school children in Nigeria, may not be far from the reason for the high rate of religious intolerance in the country. I appeal to the government at all levels to make deliberate efforts in ensuring that education plays a vital role in the socio-economic development of the country.
“Some very obvious factors have been identified as the cause or drivers of religious intolerance in the region and basically, we have looked at education as a fulcrum towards reducing the challenge. So if you situate that to the Nigerian experience, it is on record that we have one of the highest school populations and if that is correct, then we don’t need to go very far to understand why we have the challenge of religious intolerance. So what we need to do is to put together all the resources that will enable us to migrate away from being tagged as one of the countries with the highest number of out-of-school children. You have heard Cape Verde saying, 93% of their people are educated, so if we achieve education for our people, understanding will improve and that will also propel tolerance”.
Industrial Court orders ASUU to call off strike
The lawmaker questioned the claim of Nigeria being a secular state when such was not applicable in practice.
He however said that such a situation could be corrected with education.
On the allegation that politicians who are supposedly enlightened, were also one of the key drivers of religious intolerance, Abiante argued further that the solution still lies in educating the masses.
“Luckily for us we have also declared that Nigeria is a secular state, but how secular in practice is what we should be pushing for? We need to look at the perimeters and see if it guarantees secularity in practice because you cannot contradict yourself. If you say the country is a secular state, while some States within that same country have laws that declare one religion superior to the other which has led to isolating some culture, isolating some practices, isolating some beliefs to the extent that certain things are considered taboo. So a lot need to be done and you cannot achieve it by force , you cannot achieve it by fait , you can only achieve that by superior argument and the superior argument can only come when you are enlightened when you are educated,” he concluded.
