By Stephanie Shaakaa
Before the sun rises, two homes are already awake.
In one, a woman kneels with a rosary between her fingers, whispering into the quiet. It is Lent. She has chosen restraint over comfort and reflection over distraction. In another home, a man finishes his pre-dawn meal, knowing he will not eat again until sunset. It is Ramadan. He is preparing his body for hunger and his heart for accountability. Outside, the same sky stretches above them both, unconcerned with doctrine yet witness to devotion.
This year, Lent and Ramadan converge. On paper, it is a coincidence. In reality, especially in Nigeria, it feels heavier than that. In a country where religion shapes politics, neighbourhood tensions, alliances, and at times violence, the simultaneous observance of these sacred seasons invites a serious question: what does it mean when two faith communities practise humility at the same time?
Lent is a 40-day period of fasting, repentance, prayer, and almsgiving leading to Easter. Ramadan is a month of fasting from dawn to dusk, intensified prayer, charity, and moral discipline. Their theologies are distinct. Their sacred texts differ. Their doctrines are not interchangeable. But the ethical demands placed on believers during these seasons are strikingly similar. Both call for self-restraint. Both require self-examination. Both elevate generosity. Both insist that human beings are accountable before God.
Fasting, in both traditions, is not hunger for its own sake. It is discipline. It is the deliberate interruption of appetite. It is a reminder that the body does not rule the soul. When practiced sincerely, it unsettles arrogance. It forces reflection. It creates empathy for those who do not have the option of breaking their fast at sunset because poverty is not seasonal.
Nigerians understand hunger, not only the physical kind but the hunger for justice, for security, for fairness. We also understand how quickly religion can be invoked to divide. We have seen places where churches and mosques stand within walking distance of each other, yet suspicion travels faster than greetings. We have watched political actors wrap themselves in faith while speaking in ways that deepen fractures. We have buried people whose only crime was living on the wrong side of an invisible line.
Against that reality, the overlap of Lent and Ramadan is quietly instructive. Across cities and villages, Christians and Muslims are engaging in the same moral exercise. They are rising before dawn. They are praying more deliberately. They are examining their conduct. They are giving to the poor. They are trying, however imperfectly, to become better than they were the day before.
There is something disarming about shared discipline. The civil servant in Abuja who skips a meal for spiritual focus and the trader in Kano who waits for the call to prayer before touching water are not enemies in that moment. They are participants in restraint. Hunger does not ask which creed you profess. It simply reminds you that you are human.
Both seasons place strong emphasis on charity. Ramadan intensifies the practice of zakat and voluntary giving. Lent presses Christians toward almsgiving and concrete acts of mercy. In both, devotion is incomplete if it does not bend toward the vulnerable. That shared moral emphasis matters in a country where inequality is visible and need is constant. When faith traditions direct attention toward the poor at the same time, they are reinforcing a common ethical language.
The deeper issue, however, is whether that language remains confined to private piety. Nigeria’s most urgent problems are not merely economic or security related. They are also moral. Corruption is not only a financial crime; it is a failure of conscience. Violence is not only a security breakdown; it is a collapse of restraint. Distrust does not grow in a vacuum; it grows where humility is absent.
If Lent and Ramadan teach anything, they teach restraint. They teach believers to say no to appetite, no to impulse, no to excess. Imagine if that discipline extended into public life. Imagine if those who fasted also fasted from inflammatory speech. Imagine if leaders who knelt in prayer also examined their use of power with equal seriousness. Imagine if empathy cultivated through hunger softened the rhetoric that too easily turns difference into danger.
Interfaith unity does not require theological compromise. It does not ask Christians to dilute their convictions or Muslims to blur theirs. It asks something simpler and more demanding: that citizens who take God seriously also take responsibility seriously. Respect is not syncretism. Coexistence is not weakness. Mature faith is not threatened by the presence of another.
For a defined period, two of Nigeria’s largest faith communities are practicing humility under the same sun. That is not a small fact. It challenges the lazy assumption that religion inevitably divides. It suggests instead that religion, when stripped of political manipulation and lived with sincerity, can cultivate the virtues a fragile nation desperately needs.
The real test will come when the seasons end. Ramadan will conclude in celebration. Lent will culminate in Easter joy. Tables will be filled. Fasts will be broken. But what remains afterward will matter more than the symbolism of these weeks. Will the discipline fade with the calendar, or will it leave a mark?
A nation that can share hunger can learn to share responsibility. A people capable of collective restraint in devotion are capable of restraint in disagreement. If millions can submit their appetites to spiritual discipline at the same time, then surely we are not condemned to permanent suspicion.
The sky over Nigeria during these weeks does not distinguish between church and mosque. It simply covers us all. Under that sky, Christians and Muslims are practicing self-denial, generosity, and reflection simultaneously. That convergence may be temporary, but the lesson it offers is not.
We have been given a moment of moral clarity. The question is whether we recognise it and whether we are willing to let shared discipline become shared civic virtue.
When a nation shares hunger it can also learn to share responsibility.
You can reach Shaakaa though:
shaakaastephanie@yahoo.com
