Re-education of religious culture: a panacea to counter terrorism and insurgency in Nigeria

Abstract

The great monster trying to destroy Nigeria as a nation is terrorism and insurgency. The problem is that one of the three religions in Nigeria, that is, African Traditional Religion, Christianity and Islam, feel that they are the only religion that possess all the truth about God, and that everybody must accept it or die. With culture area approach, it was discovered that religion and culture form the mould from which every human being develop, and every religion has a particular culture from which it grew. Ipso facto, culture has great influence on the tenets of the religion that grew from it. For instance, Africa Traditional Religion is highly influenced by the culture of the particular area where it is practiced. Both Christianity and Islam were influenced by the culture of Asian people in the Middle East. The culture of the Middle East tolerates terrorism and insurgency, and these are found in these religions that emanated from there. Jesus Christ, however, re-educated Christianity that he expunged terrorism and insurgency from it. It was realized that most terrorist attacks and insurgency in Nigeria were caused by some Islamic groups. The re-education of Islamic culture will solve these problems.

Keywords: Education, Religion, Culture, Panacea, Terrorism, Insurgency