By Ademola Adekusibe
There is something fundamentally disturbing about a country that guarantees religious freedom in its constitution but struggles to establish the practical boundaries of that freedom when religion becomes politically, socially or judicially inconvenient. The reported conviction of Liyatu Samuel Dawa, a Christian woman sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment by a Borno State High Court, has reopened an uncomfortable conversation about Nigeria’s constitutional identity, religious liberty and the limits of religious authority. Nigerians should not look away from this conversation because the implications extend far beyond one woman, one courtroom or one religious community.
The most uncomfortable question arising from this case is whether an adult Nigerian can freely abandon one religion and embrace another without that decision becoming a source of criminal controversy. Can a Muslim woman embrace Christianity without her decision being treated as an offence against her community? Can a Christian man embrace Islam without facing intimidation or institutional interference? Does the constitutional right to freedom of religion extend equally to every Nigerian, or does its practical application depend on the religious environment in which a citizen happens to live? These are not questions designed to provoke religious hostility. They are questions that any society claiming to operate under a democratic constitution must be prepared to answer.
Dawa’s case has attracted national attention following reports that she was sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment after sharing her Christian faith with a Muslim woman who subsequently embraced Christianity. According to accounts of the proceedings, the woman at the centre of the religious conversion testified that her decision was voluntary. However, there is another dimension that Nigerians must understand before arriving at conclusions about the case. The Christian Lawyers Fellowship of Nigeria, whose members represented the defendants, has cautioned against reducing the proceedings to a simple case of a woman being imprisoned for preaching Christianity. The organisation disclosed that the allegations also involved conspiracy, enticing a child away from parental custody, removing a child from lawful custody, depriving the child of education and interfering with the child’s religious practice. Four defendants were reportedly discharged and acquitted, while Dawa was convicted on the charge relating to depriving a parent of lawful custody of a child.
That distinction is important because a child custody offence and the voluntary conversion of an adult are not the same legal question. Neither should be casually substituted for the other. However, it creates an even more important question: what exactly did the court establish, and how does the conviction relate to the constitutional right to religious freedom? The reported conviction was made under Section 210 of the Borno State Penal Code, a provision concerning the deprivation of a parent of lawful custody of a child. The public deserves to understand the complete legal reasoning behind that decision. What precise conduct did the prosecution establish? What evidence connected Dawa to the offence? What role did the religious conversion play in the proceedings? And how did the court reconcile its decision with the constitutional protections available to every Nigerian? Until the full judgment is properly examined, nobody should pretend that every detail of the case has been conclusively established. But neither should Nigerians be expected to accept a 14-year sentence without demanding answers.
Section 38 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria guarantees freedom of thought, conscience and religion. It protects the right to change one’s religion or belief and the right to manifest and propagate that religion. There is no Christian version of Section 38, no Muslim version, no northern Nigerian version and no southern Nigerian version. It is one constitutional provision for one country. If a Muslim woman decides to embrace Christianity, that is her constitutional right. If a Christian man decides to embrace Islam, that is equally his constitutional right. If an individual decides to abandon organised religion altogether, the Constitution does not require that person to obtain permission from a religious authority. Faith cannot be inherited as a compulsory obligation, and religious conviction cannot be imposed through intimidation, threats or the machinery of the state.
This is where Nigeria’s religious establishment must confront an uncomfortable reality. Religious conversion cannot be treated as an offence against a community simply because the community disagrees with the decision. An adult is not the property of a religious institution, a family or a traditional authority. The right to believe must necessarily include the right to stop believing. A person who has the freedom to embrace a religion must equally have the freedom to leave it. Any interpretation of religious liberty that protects the right to enter a faith but denies the right to leave it is fundamentally incomplete. The question is not whether religious communities have the right to express disagreement with conversion. They do. The question is whether that disagreement can justify coercion or criminal punishment for conduct that the Constitution protects.
There is another issue that deserves attention: the inconsistency with which some Nigerians approach religious liberty. There are people who passionately defend the right to practise their own religion but become uncomfortable when someone chooses a different faith. There are people who demand freedom of religious expression for their community but are unwilling to extend the same principle to others. That is not religious freedom; it is religious privilege. The test of religious tolerance is not whether you allow someone to practise the religion you already agree with. The real test is whether you can defend the rights of someone whose religious convictions are completely different from yours. If we cannot defend the religious freedom of people outside our own faith, then our commitment to religious liberty is nothing more than an expression of convenience.
Borno State, in particular, understands the devastating consequences of religious extremism and the breakdown of peaceful coexistence. Its people have endured years of insurgency, insecurity and social disruption. They deserve institutions that protect their security and fundamental rights irrespective of religious identity. The answer to religious tension cannot be to create an atmosphere in which individuals become afraid of exercising constitutionally protected freedoms. Peace cannot be built on the expectation that citizens must surrender their personal convictions to satisfy the religious expectations of their communities. Such an arrangement does not produce genuine coexistence; it produces silence, fear and resentment.
The Nigerian government and relevant institutions must also recognise that constitutional rights cannot be treated as geographical privileges. If freedom of religion is guaranteed in Lagos, it must be guaranteed in Maiduguri. If a citizen can change religion in Enugu, the same constitutional protection must apply in Borno. The Constitution does not establish different categories of citizenship based on the religious composition of individual states. Every state operates within the same constitutional framework, and every court remains bound by the supremacy of the Constitution. Religious sensitivities, cultural expectations and community traditions cannot automatically override fundamental rights.
This is why the appellate proceedings in Dawa’s case deserve serious public attention. The appellate court must examine the conviction, the evidence, the application of the relevant provisions of the Borno State Penal Code and the constitutional questions raised by the case. The public also deserves access to the reasoning behind the judgment. If the prosecution established an unlawful interference with parental custody, that finding must be assessed on its evidence and legal merits. If the circumstances surrounding the conviction raise questions about religious freedom, those questions must equally receive proper constitutional consideration. Nobody should be above the law, but nobody should be denied the protection of the law because of their religious identity.
Ultimately, this case is bigger than Liyatu Dawa. It is about the kind of legal protection available to a Nigerian citizen who belongs to a religious minority in a particular community. It is about whether our constitutional guarantees are enforceable rights or merely attractive words in a document. It is about whether religious coexistence in Nigeria will be built on mutual respect or on the expectation that individuals must surrender their freedom to satisfy the convictions of others.
Let me put the question plainly: if an adult Nigerian cannot freely choose to leave one religion and embrace another without the threat of intimidation or unlawful punishment, what exactly does religious freedom mean in this country? Nigeria must answer this question, and it must answer it through its institutions, its courts and its commitment to constitutional democracy. The Constitution belongs to all Nigerians, not to the religious majority of any state.