Two seasons of return. Two invitations to look inward. The crescent rises over the mosque. The ash settles on the forehead in the cathedral. And somewhere between hunger and humility, the human soul is asked a simple question: who have you become?
If I may borrow the breath of Rumi, I would say this is not a time for razzmatazz. It is a time for sober reflection. Ramadan is not a mere art of skipping meals. Ash Wednesday is not an ordinary ritual of cosmetic dust. They are rehearsals for mortality. One empties the stomach so the heart can ponder. The other marks the skin to remind us that _kullu ma fauqat turaabu turaabu._ We have seen too much death to pretend we do not understand this lesson.
There was a time in this country when Christians and Muslims attended one another’s event without calculating risk. I remember elders who spoke of faith with conviction yet traded in the same markets, shared the same wells, buried their dead in the same soil. Differences were real, but they were not explosives. Something has changed. Or perhaps something has been changed for us.
There is a careful science to division. It is rarely spontaneous. It is designed, rehearsed, refined.
A whisper becomes a headline. A headline becomes an outrage. The Outrage becomes an identity. Identity becomes a weapon. Then the weapon is sold back to us as protection.
In recent years, one narrative has grown particularly loud. Christian genocide in Nigeria. It is a phrase repeated so often that it begins to sound like an unquestionable fact. Now, let us be clear. Every innocent Christian killed is a tragedy. Every innocent Muslim killed is a tragedy. Blood does not carry a denomination. But when foreign politicians who cannot locate Langtan or Kamba on a map suddenly discover a burning love for Nigerian Christians, one must ask what else they have discovered.
Mark Twain once warned that patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. If he were here, he might add that foreign governments support your suffering all the time, especially when it suits them.
The insecurity ravaging our villages and highways did not begin as a theological dispute. It began with unemployment, corruption, abandoned education, porous borders, large expanse of ungoverned areas and inept political class that perfected the art of surviving chaos. It is easier to govern frightened people than empowered citizens. It is easier to win elections by inflaming identity than by delivering policy.
The imperialist West has long understood that fractured societies are pliable societies. Divide and conquer. Arm and advise. Condemn and contract. It is a strange moral arithmetic. Those whose own archives contain stories of Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Afghanistan lecture others on peace. Those whose names appear in the infamous Epstein files still walk freely, then mount podiums to sermonise about virtue. It would be humorous if it were not so grave.
George Orwell understood the mechanics. The war is peace. The division is protection. The interference is humanitarian. When language is twisted long enough, people forget what straight speech sounds like.
And so, while we argue over whether Nigeria is persecuting Christians or marginalising Muslims, the same politicians who presided over decades of decay retire comfortably. They travel abroad even for sneezing twice. They go for vacation overseas. They secure themselves with the very state apparatus that fails the ordinary farmer in Benue or trader in Kaduna. The baker laughs while the brothers fight over crumbs.
Let us pause and look at Sudan and South Sudan. Years of war. Rivers of blood. Then the great solution: separation. Division. Balkanisation. You name it. In 2011, South Sudan was born amid tears and dancing. A new flag. A new anthem. A new hope. Yet, within two years, it collapsed into civil war. Ethnic conflict, famine, displacement. Sudan itself spiralled through coups and renewed violence. Two nations now carry wounds that were once one.
So, which is better off today. Which family healed because the house was set ablaze. Balkanisation is often sold as surgery. It frequently becomes amputation without rehabilitation. The patient survives, but not whole. We should be warned.
Once a country begins to fracture along religious lines, the fracture seldom stops at religion. It moves to ethnicity. Then region. Then tribe. Then clan. It becomes a habit of suspicion. And suspicion is an addiction that politicians know how to feed.
Ramadan calls the Muslim to discipline. Ash Wednesday calls the Christian to repentance. Discipline without justice is hypocrisy. Repentance without conscience is a spectacle. If we truly fear God, we will refuse to be manipulated in His name.
O Muslim, your fast is invalid if your heart feasts on hatred. O Christian, your ash is hollow if your conscience sleeps while injustice thrives. The Qur’an speaks of justice as closer to piety. The Gospel blesses the peacemakers. These are not rival commands. They are twin lights.
We must work together, not as a sentimental gesture, but as a strategic necessity. Hold politicians accountable. Demand transparency in resource management. Insist on professional reform of our security and intelligence systems. Question foreign interventions dressed in messianic language. Ask why the same voices that speak loudly about Nigeria’s divisions are silent about their own criminal records.
Never allow those whose moral records are stained to lecture you about decency. Never surrender your neighbour to the convenience of a foreign narrative. If a church burns, a mosque should grieve. If a mosque is attacked, a church should stand guard. Not because we share doctrine, but because we share destiny.
Rumi would say that the Beloved does not ask whether you were Muslim or Christian when you defended the oppressed. He asks whether you were human. In this season of fasting and ashes, let us remember how fragile life is. The body returns to dust. Power returns to dust. Empires return to dust. Nigeria will endure only if her people refuse to be turned against one another for the benefit of the powerful and the empowered fools.
If we allow ourselves to be divided, history will not pity us. If we unite around universally accepted human values, justice, mercy, accountability, dignity, then Ramadan and Lent will not be rituals. They will be a rebirth.
The crescent and the cross need not glare at one another across suspicion. They can stand, quietly, against corruption, against manipulation, against those who profit from our pain.
This is not naive idealism. It is survival one-o-one.