Greg Cochran, Ph.D., ICC Fellow

As with an engineer thinking through the design of a building or superhighway, so, too, Christians in Nigeria are thinking through what the future holds for their plans to build families and churches in a tense political environment ostensibly worsening with the results of the most recent national election. The combination of political pressure and religious tensions entreats them to identify various stress points, hopefully ensuring these tensions and pressures don’t end in fractures and destruction. Thus far, at least three stress points have emerged as key challenges for Christians.

First, Bola Tinubu, a Muslim presidential candidate from the incumbent APC party, was declared the winner, but the election has since been contested. Yiaga Africa, a non-profit organization in Nigeria committed to promoting democratic principles and free elections, noted several irregularities in the recent voting which saw Bola Tinubu elevated to President-elect status without receiving a majority of the votes. Yiaga Africa noted that in some areas voting did not actually happen, while other locations allowed voting into Sunday morning, even though voting closed officially on Saturday night. Similarly, members of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Nigeria observed violence and voter intimidation in Lagos and other places.

These and similar abnormalities produced no less than three major lawsuits contesting the results of the election and calling for varying degrees of remedy—remedies ranging from disqualifying Tinubu to scrapping the entire election and starting fresh with a new one. In addition to pointing out the voting anomalies, these lawsuits claim that Vice President Kashim Shettima is not qualified; that required majority vote thresholds were not met; and that voting tabulations were not available electronically as required by law.

According to Nigeria’s legal code, these lawsuits must be ruled upon within 180 days of filing. Meanwhile, Lai Mohammed, Nigeria’s Minister of Information, has stated that President Tinubu will take office as scheduled on May 29 this year. How long will these lawsuits hamstring Bola Tinubu’s administration? Of course, no one knows, but the language thus far points in the direction of strained relationships for months if not years. Members of the three political parties have been accusing one another of undemocratic, unpatriotic, or even treasonous actions thus far in the chaos following these contested elections. These heated charges indicate ongoing stress which will take time to heal.

For Christians, these charges expose a major stress point between the Christian commitment to  justice and the admonition of Romans 13 to be in subjection to governing authorities. If Christians sense a growing unease with Tinubu’s government on account of perceived injustices in his being elected, then the danger of shearing off into rejection or even rebellion increases. Stress levels remain elevated for now.

Second, the election of Tinubu and the APC ticket broke a decades-long tradition of inclusion. Prior to this election, Muslim presidential candidates have chosen Christians for the vice president office, while Christian presidential candidates have selected Muslim running mates. Tinubu intentionally transgressed this unwritten rule, stoking Christian fears by selecting the Muslim former governor of Borno state, Kashim Shettima.

Even before Shettima was announced as the vice-presidential candidate, Christians were nervous about the prospect of a straight Muslim ticket: “Already Christians are being killed even though two Muslims are not running Nigeria. Imagine how bad it will be if we have two Muslims in power?” said Rev. Bayo Oladeji, a spokesman for the Christian Association of Nigeria, when questioned in January about the possibility of a single-faith ticket. Oladeji’s sentiment has now metastasized into anxiety among Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Pentecostals, Baptists, and other Christian denominations, creating a stress point regarding the balance of power in Nigeria.

As a counterbalance to the angst of this single-faith leadership, political pundits have proffered multiple mitigating considerations. Many praise Tinubu’s liberal acceptance of Christians both privately and publicly. He is married to a Christian woman, Oluremi Tinubu, a woman ordained into ministry by the Redeemed Christian Church of God, one of the fastest growing Pentecostal churches in Nigeria.

Likewise, the election results themselves have been mentioned as an additional counterbalance to Tinubu’s choice of a Muslim vice president. Though Tinubu has been announced as the winner of the election, his victory is perhaps, as Max Siollun notes, a pyrrhic victory. Voter turnout was extremely low. The president-elect received only 36% of the votes, meaning 64% of Nigerians who voted cast their ballots for someone other than Tinubu and the incumbent APC party. Will the Muslim leadership moderate in an effort to unify the population?

While these efforts to placate the stress of a single-religion rule are understandable, such placating has accomplished precious little thus far. The forsaking of a Christian presence in top leadership continues to be a major stressor. Perhaps the reason is explained by Ekwutosi E. Offiong and Charles E. Ekpo, who, in a recent journal article, argue that Nigeria is not rightly called a Secular state. Rather, they conclude,  “The implication… is that efforts by the government to appease these religious forces by maintaining equilibrium has culminated in institutional and structural reforms that have transformed the country’s political orientation, by action, to a theocratic diarchy amidst the aura of secularism.”

While the point the authors are making is that Nigeria is not rightly called a secular state, the implication is clear: Nigeria is a two-religion state, a “theocratic diarchy.” If this appellation is accurate, the gravity of one-religion leadership lands with enough weight to cause Nigerians in general and Christians in particular to ponder this severe disturbance in the political force. This disturbance represents the loss of political equilibrium. Has the diarchy been dissolved forever? Time will tell if this shift is an anomaly or a new normal, but the tension for the moment remains.

In engineering terms, this stress point would be somewhat akin to torsion, a stress in which the pressure of being twisted might wreak havoc over time. For Christians in Nigeria this torsion represents the existential twists of living under Muslim leadership while walking daily in the direction of another king.

Third, the stress of ongoing violence promotes fatigue among Nigeria’s Christian populations. When President Muhammadu Buhari of the APC party was elected in 2015, he promised to eradicate Boko Haram and its terrorist threat. By his 2021 Democracy Day address, Buhari admitted to his people that he had failed to end insecurity in the country.

While Boko Haram has morphed and splintered over the past eight years, violence in the country has never waned—particularly violence against Christian populations. Christians for these past eight years have heard promises and reassurances, both from President Buhari and from his Christian Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo. Violence has persisted. Just a couple of weeks before the election, nearly 100 villagers were killed in Kankara, Katsina State. In addition to carrying out kidnappings, rapes, forced marriages, and beatings, Boko Haram has killed more than 35,000 people in northern Nigeria since its founding in 2009. An additional 1.8 million Nigerians remain internally displaced in the northeastern states of Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe.

Will fatigue triumph as Christians contemplate the reality of the same APC party leading national affairs, yet this time without a Christian presence in a top executive post? Again, time will tell, but the present stress is heavy upon Christians to maintain faith in the face of mounting fatigue. As Nigerian Christians strategize for a better future, they will be forced to address these and other stress points.

Dr. Cochran is a professor and the Director of Applied Theology at California Baptist University. He has researched and written on international religious freedom for many years and is the author of Christians in the Crosshairs: Persecution in the Bible and Around the World Today. He has been married for 35 years and is father to 7 children.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of International Christian Concern or any of its affiliates.