Nigeria's Presidential Election: The Christian-Muslim Divide

by Robert Ruby and Timothy Samuel Shah
March 22, 2007

If Nigeria's presidential election takes place as scheduled on April 21, it will mark the first transfer of power from one elected civilian president to another in the country considered the key to stability for all of West Africa. But the campaign leading up to it is already serving as a reminder of the sharp Christian-Muslim divide in Africa's most populous country.

Nigerians will be choosing the successor to President Olusegun Obasanjo, a born-again Christian who has served two four-year terms. While Obasanjo's eight years as president symbolized an era of Christian control, even before he took office in 1999 political leaders began talking of alternating the presidency between the country's largely Christian south and predominately Muslim north. After considerable infighting and the disqualification of several would-be contenders, all of the country's major political parties have now chosen Muslims as their candidates. (A rundown of the three leading candidates)

Nigeria's population of some 140 million is divided nearly equally between Christians and Muslims. The importance of that divide is well illustrated by the fact that religion -- not nationality -- is the way in which most Nigerians choose to identify themselves. In a May-June 2006 survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 76% of Christians say that religion is more important to them than their identity as Africans, Nigerians or members of an ethnic group. Among Muslims, the number naming religion as the most important factor is even higher (91%).¹

The appetite for major political change, however, extends across the religious spectrum. Large majorities of both the country's Christians (94%) and Muslims (97%) say they are dissatisfied with conditions, and the discontent extends to virtually every major secular institution. Large majorities of both groups say they trust the national government only a little or not at all (86% of Christians, 84% of Muslims). These strongly negative opinions extend to the military (80% of Christians trust it only a little or not at all, as do 68% of Muslims) and city and local government.

Both groups also endorse many of the underpinnings of democracy. A majority of the country's Christians -- and an even larger majority of its Muslims -- say it is important that elections be held regularly with a choice of at least two political parties.

Similarly both groups are essentially unanimous in agreeing that it is important that the judicial system treat everyone in the same way and that people be able to practice their religion freely.

Both groups, however, have mixed feelings about the desirability of a government with greater political participation by ordinary people. Christians favor participatory government by a slight majority but Muslims are evenly divided, with essentially the same percentage preferring a leader with a strong hand as favor government by the people.

Still, while both Christians and Muslims list many of the same issues in identifying the major problems facing their country, the solutions favored by the two groups are heavily colored by their respective religious affiliations. Large majorities of both groups, for example, identify corrupt political leaders as a problem (86% of Christians, 90% of Muslims). A majority of Christians (72%), however, say the country's leaders should have strong Christian beliefs; an even larger majority of Muslims (77%) say the leadership should have strong Islamic beliefs.

Most of the country's Muslims (52%) also believe the government should take steps to make Nigeria an Islamic country. A significant minority of Christians (42%) say the government should make the country overtly Christian.

Underlying these sharply divergent desires is the deep distrust each group feels toward the other: Most of the country's Christians (62%) say they trust people from other religions only a little or not at all. A similar percentage of Nigeria's Muslims (61%) say they trust people of other religions little or not at all.

These differences extend to opinions about world affairs, including views of the United States and its policies, as shown by a Pew Global Attitudes Project poll conducted in spring 2006. While a large majority of Nigeria's Christians (89%) have a favorable opinion of the United States, most Muslims (67%) have an unfavorable opinion. Most Nigerian Christians say they favor U.S.-led efforts against terrorism; most Nigerian Muslims say they oppose those efforts. Those divisions carry over into opinions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Many more of Nigeria's Christians (47%) than Muslims (10%) say they favor Israel; many more Muslims than Christians say they favor the Palestinians.

Religion and religious conflict have long been part of Nigerian politics and public life. In the 1950s, while Nigeria remained under British rule, Islamic personal law, Sharia, was incorporated into the country's legal system. In the late 1960s, religion was one factor in the internal conflict that eventually erupted into the Biafra war (1967-1970), which killed as many as 600,000 people.

Since the mid-1980s, however, tension between Christians and Muslims has become an even more consistent feature of Nigerian politics. In 1986, the country's then Muslim military ruler made Nigeria a member of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, provoking an immediate outcry from many Christians, who objected to the implication that Nigeria was an officially Islamic country. In response, Nigerian Christians began to push the government to establish formal diplomatic relations with the state of Israel, which occurred in the early 1990s.

During President Obasanjo's rule, Christian-Muslim tensions have deepened. Shortly after Obasanjo took office in 1999, states in the country's northern half began to apply Sharia to criminal cases, provoking considerable insecurity and hostility on the part of Christians. Twelve states in the predominately Muslim north have established some form of Sharia. At the same time, many Christian churches, including independent evangelical and pentecostal churches as well as mainline denominations such as the Catholic and Anglican churches, have stepped up evangelistic and missionary efforts in Nigeria's middle and northern states, further increasing tensions. Since 2001, incidents of Christian-Muslim violence have become both more frequent and bloodier. (For an historical overview of Nigeria's religious groups see Historical Overview of Pentecostalism in Nigeria.)

Of course, religion is not the only divisive factor operating in Nigeria. The country's oil wealth, which accounts for about three-quarters of the government's revenues, is a potent fuel for both contention and corruption. Although the country's oil earnings total more than $500 billion, more than a third of the population lives in what the World Bank terms "extreme poverty." Most of the oil comes from the Niger delta, in the country's south. In recent years, militias there have kidnapped foreign oil workers, attacked pipelines and engaged in battles with soldiers and police. Oil also accounts for part of Nigeria's importance to the United States. Nigeria supplies about 9% of American crude imports, and steady production depends in part on political stability.

Still, whoever wins the presidential election, religious faith is likely to continue to exert a powerful influence on the country's public life. It will continue to do so for as long as Nigeria's people say they are Christians or Muslims first, Nigerians second.

---

Nigeria's Presidential Election: Leading Candidates

In Nigeria's presidential election campaign, the major issues include disputes between the country's president and vice-president over alleged corruption and questions about the health of the candidate nominated by the president's own, dominant party. The election is scheduled to take place April 21. Major candidates include:

Umaru Yar'Adua - After failing to persuade parliament to change the country's constitution to allow him to run for a third presidential term himself, President Olusegun Obasanjo, endorsed Yar'Adua as the candidate of the president's People's Democratic Party (PDP), which also governs a majority of the country's 36 states. A government commission meanwhile accused other potential contenders within the party of corruption, disqualifying them from running for president.

Yar'Adua, a Muslim, is governor of the northern state of Katsina, a largely rural area. In 2000, he formally adopted Muslim law, or Sharia, for the state's courts, while assuring non-Muslims that the government would guarantee their security. A former chemistry teacher, he is one of only a handful of governors not identified as being under investigation for alleged corruption.

The major issue in his campaign is, instead, his health. In early March, the Nigerian press reported rumors that Yar'Adua, 56, had died or that the party was about to replace him as its candidate because of medical problems. Yar'Adua responded by addressing a party rally by telephone, saying he had suffered shortness of breath and was in Germany for what he said were several days of medical tests. He has since resumed campaigning.

His vice-presidential running mate, as is the case with the other major candidates, is a Christian.

Atiku Abubakar - Nigeria's vice-president since 1999. Abubakar is a Muslim from the northeastern state of Adamawa. In 2000, he helped negotiate with five northern governors to delay enforcement of Sharia in their states after riots erupted over the issue.

Abubakar opposed Obasanjo's efforts to amend the constitution to allow him to run for a third presidential term, and the tensions between them increased as Abubakar made clear his intentions of running for president himself. Abubakar was a co-founder of the PDP but was suspended from the party after Obasanjo accused him of corruption. Obasanjo unsuccessfully sought to have him removed as vice-president. Abubakar is now the candidate of the Action Congress party.

In Feb. 2007, a parliamentary commission alleged that Abubakar had diverted more than $125 million in public funds. He denied the allegations, and in turn accused Obasanjo of corruption. Nigeria's Independent National Election Commission ruled in mid- March that Abubakar could not run because of the allegations, but a Nigerian court declared that the commisison did not have authority to disqualify him. It is not yet clear whether his name will appear on the ballot.

Muhammadu Buhari - As an army general, Buhari helped overthrow Nigeria's civilian leadership at the end of 1983 and led the country until he himself was overthrown in a military coup in August 1985. A Muslim, Buhari lost to Obasanjo in the 2003 presidential election. Buhari, who like Yar'Adua is from the northern state of Katsina, is the candidate of the All Nigeria's People Party.

As the country's military ruler, Buhari won public support for combating corruption. But he also sought to intimidate and punish critics of the regime, allowing authorities to detain people indefinitely without charge and to jail journalists for criticism of government policies.

Buhari later supported the adoption of Sharia in Nigeria's north. He has accused Obasanjo of manipulating corruption allegations against others to disqualify would-be candidates for governorships and the presidency.

---

Notes

¹Religious affiliation and the relative size of the Muslim and Christian populations in Nigeria remain such sensitive issues that the government chose not to ask about religion in the national census conducted in 2006, the first in 15 years. In this report, data on religious affiliation is drawn from the 2003 Demographic and Health Survey of Nigeria.