Christian Religion's Role In Civil Disobedience

The colonials, through Christian religion thought that the traditional religion was crude and must be discarded in favour of that, which promoted ‘obedience’ to God the Almighty, who appointed the King or Queen, viewed as next to God in the hierarchy of the obedience chain. The colonial officer who was an appointee of the colonial sovereignty (King or Queen) was therefore entitled to a place in this hierarchy, therefore a share of the sacred obedience. Almighty authority, through his King or Queen, vested in the Colonial Office meant that it was an offence, more appropriately likened to a sin punishable by God himself, to disobey the colonial officer. This way they had established allegiance to themselves through their sovereignty by exploiting
It had been beautifully maneuvered in apparent peace and tranquility, though they could not help twisting a few arms here and there when it had been deemed necessary. An Oba of the Benin Kingdom (Overawing) was banished to Calabar). Such punitive actions, whenever it occurred were always projected as necessary correction for those locals who had dared to question the order of the Queen. It had however been a well-known truth that every colonial officer, pretty much helped himself to his needs, in the name of the Queen who had to be obeyed.

This was the one aspect of the hand-over, which had translated into what the media refers to as misrule and all the vices that go with it. There had been high-handed punitive attitudes, a point that had not escaped the politicians who took a particular note and thoroughly imbibed it, as useful means in governance. Shall we say the beginning of corrupt practices or abuse of office? Most probably, politicians who had mistaken this highhanded attitude for some sort of awkward discipline copied
He saw Nigeria under colonial rule, then at Independence, experienced the rosy years that succeeded that transition, when it had seemed that the nation had started the journey on the right footing. Then the years of military rule or occupation as the case might be, the Civil war that almost decimated the country and now having to live through the effects of the collateral damage inflicted by corrupt impunity, revisited by the military and nurtured by the current political class. He had seen it all; the good, the bad and currently experiencing the ugly, as manifested in the security concerns, gross mismanagement and poor governance, which beset the country in an era where economic well being could have been taken for granted in the most populous and potentially wealthiest country in