Religion and unfortunate division among the people.
I finished my one year compulsory national service, after obtaining my Bachelor's degree, in Bauchi State Nigeria in Dec 2017. The host community where I served was so kind to me and my colleagues that I decided to invest in a farm in the community beyond my service year. Jude is a good friend that I met in the University years earlier as an undergraduate. We are so close that people often refer to us as twins from different mothers - partly owing to our identical stature and complexion.
Though Jude served in a different state, he decided to join me in Bauchi to take care of the farm after we both concluded our national service.
On the fateful day in July 2018, we were returning to Jos from Bauchi. We stayed together in the same apartment in Jos immediately after our degree. We reserved the accommodation while going our separate ways for national service. After our service, we returned back to Jos to continue staying in our house. It was from there that we visited Bauchi to inspect our farm fortnightly. Jos is a neighbouring town to Bauchi.
Throughout my Seven years of undergraduate study in University of Jos, there were pockets of irreconcilable differences in Jos. In fact, this was responsible for the delay in the duration of my programmes that made me spend seven years for a supposed six years programme. A year was lost partly to the closure of the University whenever there was a crisis in town. This problem was religious in nature. Whenever there is a break of law and order, the Muslims become unsafe in Christians dominated areas and in the same vein the Christian are also unsafe in Muslim dominated areas. The fighters from both religions attack themselves and destroy the properties owned by the people of opposing religion.
Through this period, I do spend a good amount of time with Jude, who is a Christian discussing the possible reasons for such a level of religious intolerance. We tried as much as possible to prove to people that a Muslim, which I am, can coexist with a Christian without any hostility.
We left Jos to Bauchi as usual and on our way back, we got information about a problem in town. We were about 2 kilometres away from Jos before we got the information. I immediately told Jude who was driving to make a u-turn so that we could return to Bauchi. He showed me the fuel level on the dashboard, the fuel can barely take us a journey of 2 kilometres. If we decided to return back, the two kilometres journey towards Bauchi would still have us in a flash point area. We decided to continue our journey and pray to God to save us.
He was about starting the car when my mind went to the dress we were putting on. We were both wearing a long dress popularly known as Jalabiya. This dress is mostly associated with Muslims. As a result of this, wearing such to a Christian dominated area is of high security risk. We were wearing the same dress and the first half of our journey from that point was inside Christian dominated areas. Luckily for us, we have pants and shirts in our bags. We rushed to change our dresses and we took off. At this point, both of us appeared as Christians.
I was worried about what could be our fate in the minutes to follow.
Are we taking the right decision?
I said yes to myself. Waiting at that spot wasn't safe. Neither was going back to Bauchi with fuel that could barely take us 2 kilometres. However, travelling a 2 kilometres distance would take us home.
On our way, my heart was beating faster than normal. I was scared, especially seeing youths weirding guns and swords searching for the people of the other religion to eliminate.
Stop there!!!
One of the fighters shouted at Jude and he immediately pulled over and parked. He looked into the car to see if any Muslim was in the vehicles but our dresses and a bible which belonged to Jude that was placed on the dashboard convinced him that "these ones are our own"
We were spared while we saw people being attacked and smoke taking over the sky resulting from people's properties set on fire.
We soon navigated our way out of the Christian area and we decided to pack and change in our previous dress to get safe access to the Muslim area where our house was located. The car was tinted and that afforded us the opportunity to wind up the glasses to change our dresses. We changed and both of us became Muslim in appearance.
It was an ugly experience. I never knew religion could divide people against themselves to that extent.
When we got to the Muslim area, the experience wasn't different. We were stopped and our appearance checked. I didn't waste time greeting the gun weirding young man in Arabic. He replied and waved us to proceed. Knowing the kind of area we were entering, we removed the bible on the dashboard at the point where we wind up the car glasses to change our dresses.
Miraculously, we found ourselves at home. The fighters in our immediate neighbourhood knew us quite alright and protected us as we made our way into our compound. It was a terrible experience.
Will today be the end of my existence?
This question was coming to my mind every now and then till I arrived home safely.
I don't understand why people divided themselves because of religion. Fortunately, in our region, we don't have that kind of discrimination against each other.
Good writing
It's a regrettable action.
It is unfortunate that religion can be a source of conflict and division. I am glad that you and your friend were able to make it home safely, thanks to quick thinking and a change of clothes. It takes courage to navigate through such a volatile situation, and your experience shows the importance of being aware of one's surroundings and taking precautions.👍
It was a terrible experience. Thank you for reading.
I'm sorry you had to experience that. I guess no matter how much time will pass,people will always wage battle against one another because of religion. That is just sad. More than sad. I'm glad you and Jude were safe.
Thank you so much. The religious intolerance is a source of concern. Thank you for reading.
If this piece wasn’t so tragic it would be utterly hilarious. You tell us in a tongue-in-cheek way how your igneous skill allowed you to “trick” the “authorities” at each checkpoint. The fact that your outward appearance was enough to convince them, really says it all—how do you measure a persons’ religious affiliation? Of course, it’s not possible and of course, it shouldn’t matter. Nicely done!
Honestly, a person's religion can't be measured. Thank you for your response @theinkwell