Lagos — In the words of the leading character in Rasheed Gbadamosi's play, Behold, My Redeemer, "...to be taught about oneself is to be subjected to the lowest form of human degradation." How much of a gratuitous insult and hellish curse could we have heaped on ourselves by imbibing foreign religions?

Afenifere - that is, one who not only loves others as himself, but who seeks the good of others the same way as he seeks his own: this name adopted by the pan-Yoruba socio-cultural group speaks volumes of the attitude of Africans to friends and foes alike before the coming of foreign religious practices to this continent. Not that there were no internecine wars, but, as Professor Femi Osofisan once noted in a seminal paper, none had to do with religious proselytization. It was not in Africa's memorable history that people went to war on account of trying to impose their religious beliefs on others. In fact, the mental conditioning of Africans and their religious practices hinged on mutual respect for each other's belief. Orunmila; Ona kan o wo 'ja (Only the heavens can ascertain salvation; different routes access the market). Such were our forefathers' ideas of the divine at that time. At best, they could be mutually exclusive, as happens with the Lagos Branch of the Umuofia Progressive Union in Professor Chinua Achebe's No Longer At Ease, when they say whatever disease afflicts people in their land of sojourn should go to the indigenous people of the land who know the duties of appeasement.

Things have since fallen apart. We now worship the supreme Deity in English, French and Arabic, among others, and whoever does not share our belief is doomed! Religious intolerance is the order of the day. Parochialism, charlatanism, sectarianism and mind closure are the best descriptions for the ways we now see and relate with one another in Africa. While Achebe in Things Fall Apart likens foreign religions to wine of which the more you drink, the more you get drunk, Obi Egbuna in his short story, 'Divinity', says dogmatism is the most virulent enemy to clear thinking.

This explains why, after being drunk with dogma, we carry guns, matchets, cutlasses, daggers, bows and arrows and massacre one another in Africa. It is the tragedy of ages past and present. And as one of Africa's greatest musician, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, would admonish: "We Africans must do something about this nonsense", and I say, else they would consume our future. We will get to the age in which, like the extinct dinosaurs, African culture would disappear.

At no point in Africa's history has our culture been so raped as in this age. In the early 1970s up to the early 1980s, Nigeria's educational system was not as ravaged by religious symbolism and mutual exclusivity as we now have. Although primary and secondary schools were run by missionaries, pupils and students practised their faith by choice. Efforts to make religious worship compulsory were repudiated by great educationists like the legendary Dr. Tai Solarin. Primary and secondary schools run by Muslim sects, such as the Anserudeen, did not have female students donning hijab in a scorching tropical heat. And they were not indecently dressed, either. My own sisters had to wear tunics under their frocks. These were worn during outdoor physical education, especially when instructors or education officers would come to inspect the practical work of trainee teachers.

It was a golden era when African nations produced great sportsmen and women, and physically and mentally fit learners. Some of them later became professors, judges of courts of record, lawyers and medical practitioners. When they left the regulated school uniforms that were sewn to specification, the ladies, as shown in my mother's photographs, wear close-neck buba with broad sleeves. Or in some traditions, they tied their wrappers up to their chests, leaving their shoulders bare. And I guess most had a better moral bearing than we have today.

It's not that there were no Eleha (Muslim wives who cover all parts of their body from head to toe, with only a net material for them to see through); but they were few, far between and restricted. Things have since changed. Muslim-run nursery, primary and secondary schools, and lately universities, now have our Muslim sisters donning Eleha outfits! People's morals are rather personal to them, so no one can determine how effective this culture has curbed promiscuity. But it is alarming that at the tender age of two, three or four, the African child in the 21st century is made to see how her religion is different from her friend's - an age that we could classify under innocence!

Every other day, there is an Eleha that passes through our compound. She greets and courtesies every time she's passing. Two days ago, I told people that I didn't know her even though she knows me. "You are not alone," someone else clipped in. "Off course, she knows everyone in the neighbourhood but no one knows who she is." Everybody agreed that it typically illustrated the Yoruba saying that Egungun mo ni, Eniyan o ni Egungun. (The masquerade knows you, though you don't know him!)

God forbid! What if a terrorist disguises in this thing and unleashed terror on the people? It's the tragedy of our continent. It's a big challenge to African intellectuals. We either unite culturally or perish. No two ways.