THINK NIGERIA IS ALL THAT RELIGIOUS? THINK AGAIN!

A few weeks ago, I ran a poll on Twitter asking irreligious people (atheists, agnostics, nonbelievers and apostates) in Nigeria a simple question. The poll gathered a decent degree of response, as there were over 550 votes and about 36 replies. Not a large sample set, but an informative one no less.

As an atheist/agnostic/nonbeliever/irreligious/apostate Nigerian, would you fill your correct religious status in a national census or would you fill in the religion you grew up in? Reply with your reason(s) for your choice.

Pls RT.

— Jaydon #FreeMubarakBala (@Jaydon225) October 9, 2019

The poll's outlook was to assess the confidence level to speak freely about their [lack of] faith, and possibly understand why that level is so, among people who dissent from religion in arguably one of the most religious nations in the world. Nigeria is a country in which 95% of people say they pray every day, the highest nation in that study conducted by Pew Research.

The results of my Twitter poll are thus:

• Roughly 34% of respondents said they would fill a religion; 33% said they would fill "irreligious"; and roughly 32% said they would just leave the space blank.
• In the comments, roughly 65.4% of respondents said they would fill a religion; about 19.2% said they would fill "irreligious"; and 15.4% said they would leave the space blank.

In addition, the majority of the respondents who opted to fill a religion said they would do so in order to avoid "unnecessary stress and questioning" as well as objectification as a criminal.

Now, I do not intend the poll to be a thorough, official scientific assessment of the overall reaction of atheists in Nigeria. It has a small sample set, the questions are probably not set out in a way that would be exclusive to irreligious people, and I am not a professional social scientist or anthropologist with the necessary skills to analyse anthropological data rigorously. However, I think it gives some interesting insight into what may be the psychological disposition of many irreligious people in Nigeria.

This reveals that there is a characteristic pervasive fear among irreligious people, and I suspect it is especial among the younger ones. It is the fear of being pressured and interrogated by others, especially their family, over their lack of belief in the truth of a religion. Whether this fear is warranted is another discussion altogether—and many would argue that it is, based on several socioeconomic and cultural factors as well as well-known precedents—but the evidence clearly suggests that this fear lingers in the hearts of irreligious people in the country.

Now, here is the major reason why I thought of doing this poll in the first place; I wondered if it could not be the case that the number of irreligious Nigerians is highly underestimated. And based on the findings of this very small but nonetheless revealing Twitter poll, I think that may very well be the case. It is very likely that Nigeria has higher than the current estimated 1% atheist and 2% total irreligious population. In fact, it may be possible that Nigeria has up to 3% atheist and 6% irreligious contingents—roughly 10 million people, more than the population of Singapore, Denmark, and the UAE. And among the many other religious people, it is not inconceivable that many, especially youths, are at the point where they are "questioning" their faith. This may mean that the number of irreligious people is set to rise further in the country.

I would not hereby urge irreligious people to begin to fill their "correct" religion on forms that demand the information of them, as each individual has their personal reasons for choosing to remain in the closet at the time. However, I do hope everyone realises that there is strength in numbers. The more irreligious people correctly represent themselves in the nation through the correct filling of their religious status in census polls, the more they bring themselves into the national sociopolitical discussion. For far too long, Nigeria's political sphere has progressed—Is that the correct term, though?—with a significant influence of religious undertone determining many of our national and state policies, usage of public funds, and overall national consciousness. Nigeria is perceived as a hyper-religious country and is ravaged with ethnoreligious violence. It is time secularism and humanism brought itself into the national discussion as well. But this will never be possible if the nation is not aware that irreligious people are a sizeable part of the population.

Irreligious people need to feel free to express their doubts and lack of religious conviction. They need to be able to take up the religious identity they feel most comfortable in without any form of fear. Clearly, more work needs to be done in this regard. More voices of secularism need to speak out in favour of freedom from the shackles of religion. I suppose that, the freer people are to speak about their faiths, or lack of it, without fear of segregation, intimidation, interrogation, or objectification, the better Nigeria will be overall.