THE INFLUENCE OF ISLAMOPHOBIA ON THE AVERAGE NIGERIAN UNDERGRADUATE VOTERS PERCEPTION

The paper takes a look at islamophobia in Nigeria and how it helps to shape voters consciousness in each subsequent Nigerian elections.

INTRODUCTION

The term islamophobia was derived from two distinct terms, Islam, which refers to a religion practiced by Muslims, followers of the teachings of Prophet Mohammed, and phobia, which means fear or an object or a given situation. Islamophobia is the fear/ hatred of Muslims or people who practice Islam. It is an intense dislike/fear of Islam, especially as a political force presented in the form of hostility or prejudice towards Muslims, it also involves a stereotypically attitude towards Muslims, and the restriction of Muslims to seek certain political positions in a country as was the case during the present United States president Barrack Obama’s first election, simply because he was seen as a Muslim given that he beard a name that was typical amongst Muslims, and as it is the case in Nigeria presently.  Gardell (2011) defined Islamophobia as “A socially produced prejudice and aversion towards Muslims and Islam as well as actions and practices that attack, exclude or discriminate against persons on the basis that they are or perceived to be Muslims and be associated with Islam”.  Allen (2010) defines Islamophobia as “a useful shorthand way of referring to dread or hatred of Islam and therefore, to fear or dislike all or most Muslims”. Islamophobia is not a new phenomenon but we know that today many Muslim communities experience increasing hostility towards them, characterized by  suspicion, deep rooted prejudice, and are also regarded to as barbaric and terrorists and even in some cases physically and verbally harassed. 

In psychology, the psyche is referred to as the totality of the human mind as the central force in the thoughts, emotion and behaviour of an individual and since psychology is the scientific or objective of the human and animal psyche. We as psychologist are particularly interested in studying the human conscious and unconscious responses towards Muslims and the Muslim community at large to ascertain if any form of phobia exists towards Muslims either in our conscious or unconscious mind. We also seek answers to questions on how we individually deal with such phobia, and how such a phobia affects our interaction with the Muslim community.   Islamophobia has seen a rise in many parts of the world since the pre 911 attack even till date. Since the September 11th 2001 attack on the world trade center suicide bombing, which took the lives of many American lives, where series of airline hijackings and suicide attacks committed by 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda against targets in the United States. The attacks caused extensive death and destruction and triggered an enormous U.S. effort to combat terrorism. This brought about a lot of worldwide scrutiny amongst Muslims, and brought about a new global view of the term islamophobia. In other for us to be able to properly understand the global view of islamophobia and how it began in the Nigerian society, we would have to first take a look at its origin and how the fear/hatred towards Muslims happened to have grown over the years. 

To adequately trace the origin of Islamophobia in Nigeria one would have to take a look at the political/leadership history of Nigeria for us to be able to ascertain how this phobia began. One could say Nigeria’s perceptual view of Islamophobia grew out of the ethno-religious crises era which in turn was viewed by many in the eastern region of the country as one of the reason of the Nigerian civil war. Before the Biafra war occurred in Nigeria various crisis erupted in the northern part of Nigeria, which most of the Igbo’s viewed as a form of ethno-religious cleansing (Genocide).while the northern part of Nigeria saw it as a form of retaliation to the first military couple which was plotted by the easterners.  Along the years, Nigeria has witnessed many of these ethno-religious crises, in (2001) ethno-religious crises erupted in many parts of Nigeria, which was said to have been as a result of the northern Muslims desire for the full implementation of the Islamic Sharia law in every northern state in Nigeria. Since 2001 till date, subsequent crises have erupted in various parts of northern Nigeria, where Christians have felt the most pain of such crises.