Since the clash, some two weeks ago, between the convoy of the Army Chief, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai, and some members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMIN) otherwise known as the Shiites, with soldiers killing scores of the Shia members while arresting their leader Sheik Ibraheem El-Zakzaky, a disturbing video has been circulating on the internet.

I’m not referring to the video clip showing the Shiite members, without fear and without care, ignoring all entreaties from military men that they vacate a public road which they had illegally occupied, and obstructing all vehicular movement, including that of the convoy of the Army Chief.

I’m rather referring to the clip showing El-Zakzaky right in his lair, a framed photograph of Ayatollah Komeini who led Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution in the background, a group of fierce-looking young men in black, lined up in a semi-circle around him, chanting in Arabic to a high-pitched sonorous sound and stamping their right feet in a rhythmic movement forward and backward, while slapping their chests with their right hands. As the music and the chanting and the stamping stopped, El-Zakzaky walked through a door into an inner room, two or three other young men generally scampering to surround him, open the door for him and walk him in.

From the video clip, what was obvious was a man leading a group of people who are completely, unquestioningly submissive; a cleric who is almost deified by his followers. When such a deified man is a religious leader with over two million unquestioning followers, mostly youth, he’s bound to revel in the drunkenness of his power. It is no wonder that El-Zakzaky and his followers have for several years created an alternate power centre to every legitimate authority of the state, disrupting the social order, constituting themselves into a public nuisance and serially taunting and daring the security agencies.

For a man with such latent and manifest power, the state owes it a responsibility to its survival and the promotion of public good to, using the instrumentality of the law, break him as it is unlikely he would allow himself be tamed.

For too long, not a few religious leaders, Christian and Muslim, have taken undue advantage of the unrestrained freedom allowed their operations to exploit the people, abuse their power, operate outside of state authority, and generally play god. Yes, our laws allow religious freedom, but not without responsibility.

Going forward, governments need to put in place measures that would help stop the exploitation of the generality of the people on the strength of their religiosity and poverty and ignorance. The four suggestions below could be a good way to start.

1) Some regulation required: There’s no serious society where religious practice is allowed outside of the ambit of regulations.

In Saudi Arabia, where Islam originated, there are very strict guidelines against strange doctrines and negative dogmas and radical ideologies. This is because the state takes seriously its duty to keep the peace and order.

In Western countries like the United Kingdom, where Christianity came to Nigeria, the Charity Regulatory Commission has oversight duties on the finances of religious organizations. And those who abuse the law governing religious activities in the country are sanctioned.

In Nigeria, however, the state has allowed for so many years, religious practice to flourish with little or no regulation. Unscrupulous individuals and power-hungry clerics had at different times taken advantage to preach hate speeches in the name of messages, incite their followers against other religions and other doctrines of the same religion, and treat the state and its institutions with contempt.

It is no wonder that the Mohammed Marwas (Matatsine), the Mohammed Yusufs (Boko Haram), the Immanuel Olufunmilayo Odumosus (Jesu Oyingbo) and the Rev. Chukwuemeka Ezeugos (Rev. King) found it so easy to instigate unprecedented social turmoil causing the death of thousands of people in religious violence (the first two) and the birth of hundreds of children, some with undeterminable paternity, in a sex commune (the last two).

The state has perhaps failed in its responsibility of imposing religious regulation for fear of being accused of curtailing religious freedom. However, the one need not be mistaken for the other.

Every person for instance has the freedom to eat whatever food, but then there are social conventions and hygienic conditions required to make the food nutritious and prevent the poisoning of those who partake in its consumption.

Yes, freedom of religious worship is important; but regulation is also required to prevent abuse.

2) Also some taxation: On paper, religious bodies in Nigeria are registered as non-governmental organizations. In other words, they are non-profit making organizations, or some kind of charities, and are therefore exempted from paying taxes.

In practice, however, many religious bodies are anything but non-profit. Not a few religious organizations, Christian and Muslim, exploit the grey areas of the law and the religionization of politics to carry out extensive business ventures.

Along the Lagos-Ibadan expressway for instance, the Redeemed Christian Church (RCC) and the Mountain of Fire and Miracles (MFM) are two religious bodies that have acquired vast expanse of land.

The Redeemed Camp has since been developed into a town of its own. What is interesting is that the two bodies engage in a thriving hospitality industry as they own and run guests’ houses, supermarkets, restaurants and other businesses within their camps so people who come from different parts of the country for prayers and other church programmes could stay in comfort at their own cost.

Since all these businesses are carried out on the platform of religious bodies, it is doubtful if the churches have ever cared to remit VAT and withholding taxes on revenue earned from the sale and supply of goods and services.

Dr. David Oyedepo of Winners Chapel has been reported to be worth £90 million as he sits atop a thriving empire of two universities, housing estates, shopping malls, a hangar and two or more private jets.

How much of these businesses are hidden behind the veil of the church, a non-profit organization? The state should devise a formula for separating the church as a place of worship from the revenue generating ventures established on the church’s platform.

The one should remain non-profit but the other should be made to pay taxes.

Christian organizations like RCC and MFM, Islamic bodies like NASFAT and others like Sat Guru Maharaji, that have acquired vast expanse of land should be made to pay land use charges. For taxation is not only a means of generating revenue for government, it is also a way of subjecting individuals to state authority and preventing private institutions from arrogating to themselves unconferred powers.

3) Separate state from religion: It is a given that Nigeria is a multi-religious nation. Indeed every constitution since the country’s independence has highlighted the secularity of the state. But that appears to be only in theory.

In practice, the religionization of politics and the politicization of religion always seemed to confer the religion of whoever is president at any point in time as state religion. Because of the hypocrisy of the political elite, religious worship has stopped being a private affair for the president or state governor. Politicians follow them to the mosques or churches as all make a pretense to being devout worshippers.

Those who only yesterday rigged election on a massive scale or sponsored electoral violence and the killing of political opponents quickly resort to organizing thanksgiving for their victories at the polls. Clerics appointed or self-appointed as religious consultants to the powers that be suddenly assume some kind of spiritual arrogance.

They talk with little or no respect about the faith or doctrine of others. It is unhelpful the way prayers are politicized at state functions and political meetings. The state needs to ensure that religion is taken out of politics and politics separated from religion. Or a time would come when a Wole Soyinka would become president and the political elite, in their hypocrisy, would follow him to the shrine of his patron god, Ogun.

4) Enterprise in school curriculum: There’s an urgent need for a comprehensive review of the education curriculum. The colonial era-designed curriculum, which had undergone very little review, was essentially to employ graduates for white-collar jobs.

However, the landscape has since changed. Globally, entrepreneurship is being promoted. School curriculum is now designed with enterprise in mind, irrespective of courses. Most graduates of the nation’s schools are unemployable because the curriculum is outdated. And because they are unemployable, they are idle and available for recruitment and indoctrination by the El-Zakzakys of this world.

There are other options the government could of course explore. The government simply has to take the country away from those who use religion to undermine the state and divide the people. What will be dangerous and unacceptable is to do nothing.