Silencing Scepticism: The Quiet Persecution of West African Atheists
In February earlier this year, in the affluent, business-orientated neighborhood of Cantonments in Accra, a billboard reading, “Don’t believe in God? You are not alone”, went up. Funded by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) and planned by a small local group called Accra Atheists, this billboard, among others of a similar nature, marked the first known atheist billboard in Africa.
Accra Atheists’ president, Roslyn Mould, carefully selected the wording to avoid causing offence given the sensitive nature of the topic. The billboard did not aim to challenge people of faith but rather to acknowledge the existence of atheists in Africa. She explains that “This billboard represents not just visibility but validation for those who often feel isolated in their nonbelief. Thanks to FFRF’s unwavering support, we’ve achieved something historic. This moment will never be forgotten.” In a continent where more than half of the countries still enforce Edwardian-era blasphemy laws, the Sharia, or a combination of both, the public recognition of irreligious people in Ghana is a significant step forward.
Being irreligious or an atheist in Africa has always been an uphill battle. Unlike forms of religious scepticism in the Middle East, where the strict enforcement of the Sharia represses religious diversity, and unlike the Americas, where conservative Catholics and evangelical groups frequently target secular groups, atheists and irreligious people in Africa must confront a myriad of oppositional forces. Scott Jacobsen of Humanists International, who has voiced support for similar projects across Africa, compares the burden of irreligious Africans to Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders. He writes that “African atheists and Humanists are simultaneously confronting: Arab colonialist influence through Islam. European colonialist influence through Christianity. Traditional superstitions and indigenous beliefs that existed before colonization and persist today. It is an enormous challenge, and that is what makes the African case so unique. There, atheists are not just fighting against one ideological system—they are combating all three simultaneously”.
Ghana, however, provides the ideal testing grounds for a project of this nature. Although the country is deeply religious, it does not criminalize blasphemy, as guaranteed by its 1992 constitution. Predominantly Christian, with a growing Muslim minority, Ghana is one of the rare African states that remains politically secular, and with no significant links between ethnicity and religion. While Section 207 of the nation’s criminal code that prohibits “insulting words or behaviour with intent to provoke a breach of the peace”, the country continues to be a hotbed of evangelism and hosts some of the largest congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons in Africa. The stakes for such a billboard are likely to be far higher elsewhere in West African. As Jeffrey Haynes at Observatoire International Du Religieux notes, “Ghana is not however the norm. On the one hand, there is a de facto African consensus that incitement to violence – including in relation to those accused of blasphemy or apostasy – calls for state protection of those threatened. On the other hand, state policies towards incitement to discrimination do not always support this aim; across the region, they vary markedly. In Africa, various freedoms – including of opinion, expression, and freedom of religion or belief – are often rather intricately intertwined; violations against one often lead to abuses against another”.
The most well-known case of blasphemy and apostasy charges against an irreligious African is that of Mubarak Bala in Kano State, Nigeria. Bala, a chemical engineer and member of a prominent family of Islamic scholars, publicly declared his atheism in 2014 after his faith eroded in the face of rising Islamic terrorism and strong conservatism in his home state. He was subsequently committed to a psychiatric institution for “denying the biblical account of Adam and Eve”. He was held for eighteen days and claims to have been both beaten and threatened with death. Humanists International and several doctors intervened on his behalf to secure his release.
In 2020, Bala was appointed the president of the Humanists Accosication of Nigeria, however this only intensified his troubles. After sharing criticism of the life of Prophet Muhammad on Facebook in April 2022, he was arrested for blasphemy. Fearing death, he reached out to Nigerian secular activist Leo Igwe, who works to support those accused of witchcraft navigate the legal process. Igwe worked alongside numerous secular organisations, including the Atheist Alliance International and the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, pressed the Nigerian government for Bala’s release. Yet, after a two-year long legal battle, Bala was sentenced to 24 years in prison, one year for each of the 24 charges brought against him. Following sustained pressure from European governments and continued campaigns by Humanists International intensified, Bala was released in late 2024. He went into hiding in Lagos before relocating to Bavaria, Germany, with assistance from the German government and a fellowship through Humanist Society’s Shelter Program.
Mubarak Bala’s case is one of many such across West Africa but unfortunately, it is one of the few to receive international attention. It exemplifies the immense social pressure and constant threat of incarceration, or death, that atheist and irreligious individuals face throughout the region. In a landscape of pervasive and systemic repression of religious diversity, FFRF’s billboard offers West African atheists a glimmer of hope in an otherwise untenable reality.
Image courtesy of Muntaka Chasant via Wikimedia Commons, ©2019. Some rights reserved.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the wider St Andrews Foreign Affairs Review team.
