RELIGION AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN A PLURALISTIC SOCIETY: THE CASE OF NIGERIA
RELIGION AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN A PLURALISTIC SOCIETY: THE CASE OF NIGERIA

Summary/Abstract: This article argues that while there is an intrinsic nexus between religion and human rights, it is rather group religion that has come to denigrate human rights and to vitiate the harmonious co-existence of people of different faiths typical of a religiously pluralist society. It surveys the content of human rights and shows how some aspects of it have been violated in the recent past in Nigeria. It explores the perceptions of the three major religions in Nigeria on human rights and shows that each has a clear and distinctive teaching on and respect for human dignity. The intolerance of Islam and Christianity are portrayed as the handiwork of religious bigots who employ social miscreants. The authors wish to submit that the developing national culture of human rights should be allowed to thrive along with the nascent democracy and that the „pushers“ of Islam and of Christianity should let the nation „move forward“in her human rights fence-mending programmes.

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