Sharia 73, Christianity 0 – The Scam Of Nigeria As A “Secular” Country Exposed! [Dr Ope Banwo, Mayor of Fadeyi, Founder, Naija Lives Matter]

This is how Christians and other non-Muslim religions have been deceived for years about the true place of religion in Nigeria.

Christians, and every other non-Muslim community in Nigeria, let’s stop pretending we don’t understand what is happening.

We are living with the constant fear of a slow-motion genocidal war inside our own country. Villages wiped out. Churches burnt. People butchered on farms and highways. Yet some people talk and behave as if Nigeria was designed to be an Islamic state from day one – and as if Christians, traditionalists and other faiths are just squatters who should quietly disappear from certain parts of the map.

Before we keep shouting at the symptoms, we need to confront the root.

You only get more of what you permit.

For decades, we – especially Christians – have permitted a quiet, deadly scam. We bought a sweet political lie that “Nigeria is a secular state” and swallowed it without reading the fine print. While we were happily quoting “secular state” on Facebook and from church pulpits, our Constitution, some federal institutions, and key international alliances were quietly painting a very different picture.

On paper, Nigeria loves to call itself secular. In reality, what we have built is not a secular state. It is a soft Islamic state wearing a poorly sewn secular T-shirt.

• We have Sharia woven into the Constitution.
• We have Islamic courts entrenched as part of the official judiciary.
• We sit comfortably inside an international Islamic bloc.
• We have not a single named mention of Christianity in the supreme law of the land.

Then we are surprised that extremists now feel bold enough to talk and act as if their mission is to “complete” the project and turn the whole place into a full-blown Islamic republic.

You can’t plant mango and be surprised when mango starts growing.

The “Secular State” Lie We All Swallowed

Let’s start with the favourite lullaby verse of Nigerian politics: Section 10 of the 1999 Constitution:

“The Government of the Federation or of a State shall not adopt any religion as State Religion.”

Beautiful English. One line that has been used for decades to sedate Christians and other non-Muslims:

• “Don’t worry, the Constitution protects you.”
• “Nigeria is secular now, stop being dramatic.”
• “Relax, we have Christmas and Sallah holidays, everybody is happy.”

But when you listen to serious legal minds, you hear a completely different tune. Many senior lawyers and scholars admit Nigeria is not truly secular the way we like to imagine. The late Supreme Court Justice Niki Tobi even explained that Section 10 does not make Nigeria a secular state and does not drive religion out of public life.

In simple language: The same system that keeps telling you “we are secular” is quietly whispering to itself, “we are not really secular like that o.”

So let’s drop the slogans and look at the evidence in our own Constitution.

What the Constitution Is Really Obsessed With

If you want to know what is in a man’s heart, watch what he repeats.
If you want to know what is in a country’s soul, check what its Constitution is obsessed with.

When you run through the 1999 Constitution, some things should make any honest person sit up:

• “Sharia” keeps popping up.
• “Islam” keeps popping up.
• “Grand Kadi”, “Muslim”, “Islamic” keep showing face.
• “Christ”, “Christian”, “Christianity”, “Church” are completely missing.

A multi-faith country. Tens of millions of Christians. Yet the supreme law of the land cannot find a single line to name Christianity, but comfortably finds space for Sharia, Islam, Muslims and Islamic institutions again and again.

Tell me again how this is a neutral, secular design. And it doesn’t stop at words. The Constitution doesn’t just drop “Sharia” casually like decoration. It builds it into the actual structure of the Nigerian state.

We have a Sharia Court of Appeal for the FCT, written in black and white as a superior court of record. Any state that “requires it” is empowered to set up its own Sharia Court of Appeal, with defined jurisdiction. These courts sit constitutionally beside the normal courts; they are not some backyard, voluntary religious panels.

How does a truly secular state use its Constitution to build a special parallel court system for one religion, and then turn around to be forming “we are neutral”?

To make it worse, some positions in those courts are reserved by law for one faith. To be a Kadi of a Sharia Court of Appeal, you must be a legal practitioner and a person of Islamic faith. Imagine if we created a “Christian Court of Appeal” in the Constitution and wrote that only a Christian can head it. Nigeria will catch fire overnight.

But in this “secular” Nigeria, the reverse is quietly accepted and normalised.

One-Third Of Nigeria Already Lives Under Full Sharia

Because of those constitutional doors, 12 northern states have moved from theory to full practice. They have built Sharia systems that go beyond marriage and inheritance to cover criminal law and everyday life.

Let’s call their names clearly: Zamfara, Kano, Sokoto, Katsina, Bauchi, Borno, Jigawa, Kebbi, Yobe, Kaduna, Niger and Gombe.

In these states, Sharia is not just a private religious choice. It is a main body of public law, enforced by state structures. You have Sharia penal codes. You have Hisbah and morality policing. You have formal systems where blasphemy can carry extreme punishments.

That is one-third of the Nigerian federation.

Yet in this same “secular” country, no other religion has a state of its own:

• No “Christian state” officially recognised.
• No Isese state.
• No traditional religion state.
• No Bahá’í state.

Nothing.

But the Constitution has made room for a block of Sharia states inside a supposedly secular republic. And we still act surprised when some people talk as if Nigeria is naturally a Muslim country that others are just tolerated in.

On top of that, some Islamic pressure groups are openly campaigning for Sharia courts to be planted in all 36 states. The South-West has become a new battlefront, with voices suggesting that Sharia structures should enter Yoruba land “since the Constitution allows it”.

This is not a secular project. This is gradual Islamisation by legal design.

This Is Not Theory – People Are Already Paying With Their Lives

For some people, “Sharia” is just a textbook topic. For others, it is a matter of life and death.

We have seen:

• A teenager sentenced by a Sharia court to years in prison for so-called “blasphemy”.
• A young musician given a death sentence under a Sharia system for lyrics deemed insulting.

International outrage may delay or reverse some cases, but the key point is this: These are not imaginary scenarios. They are happening now, inside the same Nigeria they told us is “secular”.

Nigeria in the OIC: Secular on the Microphone, Islamic on the Membership Card

As if all this is not enough, Nigeria is also a proud member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) – an international body created to represent and coordinate Muslim-majority states and promote Islamic solidarity.

We didn’t join as an observer. We joined as a member. Quietly. No national referendum. Minimal debate. And every government since then – military, PDP, APC – has left us there comfortably.

A truly secular, neutral state does not:

• entrench Sharia courts at home,
• join an Islamic cooperation bloc abroad, and then stand on a podium to tell its Christian and non-Muslim citizens: “Relax, we are secular.”

You can’t be eating tuwo at the OIC and be taking selfies with “secular credentials” at home. Choose a lane.

How Christians and Other Non-Muslims Slept Through the Scam

So how did Christians and other non-Muslims allow this thing to grow this big?

Simple: we were given the “secular state” sleeping pill.

We were told:

• “The Constitution says no state religion, relax.”
• “We all enjoy public holidays together, stop complaining.”
• “Don’t rock the boat, don’t sound like a fanatic.”

Many pastors and Christian leaders repeated it, again and again, without ever opening the Constitution to see the growing Islamic infrastructure inside it.

While we were dancing, sowing seeds and chasing prosperity prophecies, the system was busy:

• hardening Sharia courts into the constitutional structure,
• keeping Nigeria inside the OIC,
• allowing religious police, blasphemy prosecutions and parallel legal systems to take root in a dozen states.

Now that the killings, persecution and threats are becoming unbearable, Christians are waking up, shocked to discover that the legal foundation was laid long ago – and we were too distracted or too timid to challenge it.

Why This Confusion Is Dangerous Fuel for Extremists

Our current arrangement is madness:

• On paper, we say “no state religion”.
• In practice, the Constitution and state behaviour clearly favour one religion structurally.

That contradiction is a breeding ground for extremists. They look at:

• the Sharia courts in the Constitution,
• the OIC membership,
• the Sharia states block,
• the silence of Christian leaders over the years,

and they conclude: “This country was meant to be Islamic. We just need to finish the job.” So when you hear:

• “We must expand Sharia.”
• “Blasphemy must be punished.”
• “Nigeria is an Islamic country under the Constitution.”

Understand: they are not just dreaming; they are standing on legal and political realities we refused to confront. Meanwhile, Christians and other non-Muslims are still muttering: “But I thought we are a secular state…”

That is the scam.

So What Do We Do Now?

This is where many people lose the plot. They shout, they rant, they cry – and then go home and do nothing.

If Christians and other non-Muslims don’t want to remain permanent second-class citizens in their own country, some things must change – peacefully, legally, but firmly.

Let’s keep it practical.

1. Stop singing “secular state” like praise worship – read the document.
   Churches, fellowships, youth groups, campus ministries, professional bodies must start teaching the Constitution, not just memory verses. Let people see for themselves how many times Sharia and Islam are mentioned, how many times Christianity is airbrushed out, and how Sharia courts are built into the structure. Ignorance is part of the scam.
2. Demand a constitutional clean-up.
   We can’t continue with this double tongue. Either we remove all religious legal structures from the Constitution and make it truly neutral; or we openly admit the religious colour of the state and let every citizen decide their fate. What we have now is what is fuelling suspicion, persecution and talk of genocide.
3. Put Nigeria’s OIC membership on trial.
   OIC cannot remain a quiet footnote. We need open parliamentary debate, strong court actions and, if necessary, a referendum on whether a multi-faith republic that claims “no state religion” should sit comfortably inside an Islamic bloc. You can’t be in OIC on Monday and be forming “purely secular” on Tuesday.
4. No citizen should face religious criminal law they don’t believe in.
   At minimum, no Nigerian – Christian, Muslim, traditionalist, atheist – should be jailed, flogged or killed under a religious penal code they do not subscribe to. If religious courts must exist, they should be strictly limited to personal matters for voluntary participants, not creeping quietly into criminal law and public life.
5. Build a serious Christian (and non-Muslim) legal & civic response.
   Prayers are good. But this matter needs lawyers, activists and policy people too. We need test cases in court, advocacy groups challenging blasphemy sentences and discriminatory practices, and organised campaigns educating citizens – not just emotional rants on pulpits and timelines.
6. Fight for fairness, not Christian domination.
   This is not a call to “Christianise” Nigeria. It is a call to stop state favouritism. If one religion is given special legal recognition, others will push for their own. That road leads to fragmentation and chaos. The smarter path is simple: a Constitution that names no religion, empowers no religion, and protects all citizens equally.
7. Focus on the system, not your Muslim neighbour.
   The enemy is not your Muslim colleague or neighbour. Many ordinary Muslims do not support extremism and also want a fair, sane country. The real battle is with a legal and political system that tilts toward one faith while pretending to be neutral – and with the politicians, judges, clerics and cowards who benefit from keeping that confusion alive.

The Scam Is Exposed – What Next?

A Constitution that shouts Sharia and never mentions Christianity is not neutral.
A country that quietly joins an Islamic bloc and never leaves is not acting secular.
A state that allows religious criminal law, religious police and blasphemy death sentences is not practicing honest religious freedom.

The scam worked for years because many of us never read the fine print.

Now we have read it.

From here, the worst crime is not what they did in 1999. The worst crime will be what we do – or fail to do – now that the truth is in our face.

Stop chanting “Nigeria is a secular state” like a nursery rhyme.

Start demanding a Constitution and a legal order that actually match that sentence – or stop lying to ourselves and call this thing what it really is.