POLITICIZATION OF RELIGION: A REFLECTION ON FULANI HERDSMEN ATTACK IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Religions have emerged in the course of history as standards of relating to society, with the moral aspect of most religions being viewed from the humanistic context from which they originated. The clerical rituals and the communitarian roles have become the dominant social view of religion. In the pre-industrial society, kings use the guise of religion for their expansion quest, aligning with the clergy. The expansion quest assumed the form of Crusades for Christian kings, while for the Muslims, it took on the form of jihad, the Hindu kings not to be left behind, sought expansion under the guise of the Dharmayuddh. The common denominator is that the violence associated with the expansion were all carried out in the name of religion.1 Thus, what commonly appears to be religious conflict is in fact politics not religion. There are claims also that the so-called religious wars are but economic and not religious or ethnic wars. The assumption stems from the belief that religion by itself is not a major factor in human events, but an epiphenomenon (something that can be caused but cannot cause something else).