In a country already walking a tightrope of ethnic suspicion, economic strain and political brinkmanship, a single sermon from Kano has sent shockwaves through living rooms, pulpits and party war rooms. Sheikh Yahaya Jingir’s recent remarks - urging Muslims to “prepare your votes,” declaring Nigeria “a Muslim country,” branding Christians “infidels,” and insisting that those who reject a Muslim-Muslim ticket “should leave Nigeria because it belongs to us” - are not merely unwise and divisive. They are combustible.
The words, delivered at a public event and amplified across social media, have provoked more than a hundred frantic calls and messages of alarm from both Christians and Muslims. What compounds the injury is the reported presence and apparent endorsement of senior political figures. In a multi-religious federation whose Constitution proclaims secularity, such rhetoric does not merely offend; it rewrites the national contract in the language of conquest.
Nigeria is not a Muslim country. It is not a Christian country. It is a secular, multi-religious state whose strength has always rested on the uneasy but necessary coexistence of roughly equal populations of Muslims and Christians, alongside other faiths and ethnic nationalities. To claim exclusive ownership of the land, to demand that one faith’s numerical or political dominance be permanently “sustained,” and to treat fellow citizens as outsiders who must accept subordinate status or depart, is to reject the very idea of Nigeria. It is the rhetoric of partition, not of nationhood.
The practical political damage is immediate and measurable. President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima are seeking a second term in 2027 under a Muslim-Muslim ticket that already faces determined opposition. In a polity where victory requires votes from both faiths, any suggestion that the ticket represents religious triumphalism rather than competence and national appeal hands opponents a ready-made campaign weapon. Jingir’s language feeds the very narrative that the administration has struggled to rebut - claims of an Islamizing agenda and of indifference to Christian insecurity. It de-markets the government more effectively than any opposition press conference could. Muslims across party lines have already begun distancing themselves; Christians who might have been persuadable will now see confirmation of their deepest fears.
This is not abstract theology. Nigeria’s political kettle is hot and boiling over while its temperature is relatively high. Threats of protest, regional grievances, economic hardship and lingering insecurity form a powder keg. Inflammatory religious speech is the match. History is replete with cautionary tales of countries that allowed preachers and politicians the latitude to turn the ballot into a religious census. Once citizens begin to believe that the state belongs to one faith alone, the centre does not hold; it burns.
The Sheikh does not speak for the majority of Nigerian Muslims. He speaks for an infinitesimal strain of exclusion that most Muslims reject and that the broader Ummah has historically resisted. Yet silence from those who know better is itself a form of complicity. Political leaders who cheer such language, or who fail to condemn it promptly and unequivocally, share responsibility for the consequences. Matters of faith and salvation outrank any ephemeral electoral calculation. Politics is transient; the afterlife is not. When politicians and clerics employ religion as a campaign tool, they endanger both the soul of the nation and the credibility of the faiths they claim to defend.
Christians are not infidels. They are believers. No community is going anywhere; this is their country too. Nigeria’s future does not lie in the permanent entrenchment of one religious ticket or another, but in the consistent insistence that character, competence and policy - not the faith of the candidate - determine leadership. A Christian-Christian ticket is as conceivable tomorrow as a Muslim-Muslim ticket is today, provided it rests on merit rather than demographic arithmetic.
The remedy is straightforward and urgent. Sheikh Jingir should be invited by the relevant security agencies, formally cautioned, and required to withdraw and apologize for language that endangers public peace. Political figures who appeared to endorse him must clarify their position without equivocation. Religious leaders of every tradition must reassert the simple truth both the Qur’an and the Bible affirm: that mutual respect and peaceful coexistence are obligations, not optional courtesies.
Nigeria’s multiethnic and multi-religious identity is not a weakness to be overcome by dominance. It is the only workable foundation the country possesses. To play with that foundation for short-term political advantage is to play with fire in a house already filled with dry tinder.
The Sheikh’s words have done damage. The greater damage will come if the rest of the nation fails to answer them with clarity, restraint and an unyielding defence of the shared republic. The fire has been lit. It must be put out before it consumes us all.
~ Cardinal Cross Ibara is a Christian and Development Communication Expert
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