There can be no doubt
that the freedom of religion, belief and opinion in the open and
democratic society , contemplated by the Constitution of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria is important. The right to believe or not to
believe, and to act or not to act according to his beliefs or non
beliefs, is one of the key ingredients of any persons dignity. Yet,
freedom of religion goes beyond protecting the inviolability of the
individual conscience. For many believers, their relationship with God
or creation is central to all their activities. It concerns their
capacity to relate in an intensely meaningful fashion to their sense of
themselves, their community, and their universe. For millions in all
walks of life, religion provides support and nurture and a framework for
individual and social stability and growth. Religious belief has the
capacity to awake concept of self-growth and human dignity which the
corner stone of human Rights. it affects the believer's view of the
society and founds the distinction between right and wrong. it expresses
itself in the affirmation and continuity of powerful traditions that
frequently have an ancient character transcending historical a pocks and
national boundaries.
The underlying problem in any open and
democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom in which
conscientious and religious freedom has to be regarded with appropriate
seriousness, is how far such democracy can and must go in allowing
members of religious communities to define for themselves which laws
they will obey and which not. such a society can cohere only if all its
participants accept that certain basic norms and standards are binding.
Accordingly, believers cannot claim an automatic right to be exempted by
their beliefs from the Laws of the land. At the same time, the State
should where reasonably possible, seek to avoid putting believers to
extremely painful and intensely burdensome choices of either being true
to their faith or else respectful of the Law.
Before setting out to apply to substantiate on being
real to the faith and the Law, it would be conducive of clarity to
discuss the issue of proportionality analysis on the area of religious
rights. The most complex problem is that the competing interests to be
balanced belong completely to different conceptual and existential
orders. Religious conviction and practice are generally based on faith.
Not only do they proselytise through the media and in the public square,
religious bodies play a large role in public life, through schools,
hospitals and poverty alleviation relief. they command ethical behaviour
from their members and bear witnesses to the exercise of power by State
and private agencies, they promote music, arts and the theatre, they
provide hall for community activity, and conduct great variety of
social activities for their members and the general public. They are
part of the fabric of public life , and constitute active elements of
the diverse and pluralistic Nation contemplated by the Constitution.
Religion is not just a question of belief or doctrine. it is part
of a way of life, of a peoples' temper and culture. The result is that
religious and secular activities are, for the purposes of balancing,
frequently as difficult to disentangle from conceptual point of view as
they are to separate in a day to day practice. While certain aspects may
clearly be said to belong to the citizens Caesar and others to the
believers God, there is a vast area of overlap and interpenetration
between the two. It is in this area that balancing becomes doubly
difficult, first because of the problems of weighing consideration of
faith against those of reasons and secondly, because of the problems of
separating out what aspects of an activity are religious and protected
by the law.
In conclusion, the Law of the State has the capacity
of making the Believers sinners if, the law is not balanced and proper
regards given to the faith of the believers helping them to be real to
their faith. The essence of equality lies not in treating every one in
the same way, but in treating everyone with equal concern and respect
and the Christian believers in any democratic setting must be regarded
to enable them to true to their faith. The Believers also must be
reasonable in electing people who will have respect and regards to their
faith and not people who would us the legislations to make them sinners.
