Why I Stopped Praying for Nigeria (unrulers)
Religious Nigerians must end their insincere prayers if this country is to move forward.
Nigerians are hyper-religious.
Meet any group of them and ask about their religion. They are quick to identify as Muslims or Christians.
For many, their religion is only skin-deep and serves as a means of identity.
Nothing more.
When it comes to practicing their religions, most of them are empty professors.
They may sound their religion to the highest heavens, but it never touches their hearts or influences their characters. What you see is religion without morals, bereft of principles, and completely devoid of humanity.
Religious as they are, Nigeria may be the most prayerful and prayed-for country in the world. This realization struck me when I asked my Nigerian friend in Dubai to join in prayers for Nigeria. That was before the last presidential elections of February 2023. My concerns, for which I solicited his prayers, were for hitch-free elections.
Right away, he responded with an unscripted reply full of enlightening truths. “I don’t think I can pray for Nigeria better than they have been praying for themselves.”
Many Nigerians make high-sounding prayers every day. But, both in character and through daily choices, they act to negate their prayers. Here, it is the survival of the fittest, “by hook or by crook”.
Doing evil and afterward praying for good
Only in Nigeria do people make poor political choices and then rely on God to shield them from the obvious negative outcomes.
A Nigerian Redditor cleverly pointed out that Nigeria's electoral system is so advanced that election results are known before people even vote.
Result sheets are filled before the voting takes place. Nigerians also have a robust political support system that arms their supporters while the police aid and abet the wishes of their unruly political paymasters”.
Considering the agonizing throes the country is presently passing through, no Nigerian should miss the irony of these astute observations.
Yet, come tomorrow, the same people who planted and watered such a criminal system will be shedding crocodile tears and asking,
“How did we get to this state?” and
“Who do us like this?”
“How and when did things get so bad for Nigerians as this…” ad ad nauseam.
Is there any hope for democracy, civilization, and progress to thrive in a country that glories in what every sane person sees as abhorrent?
They kill and maim on Election Day only to run to their churches and mosques to pray for good governance, peace, and prosperity.
Just imagine that.
It is not that God doesn’t answer prayers. But if you are God Almighty will you answer the prayers of such a people and a nation?
Many Nigerians have no scruples in supporting injustice, inequity, and lies. They rationalize and equivocate it all. What matters is who is doing injustice to whom. At home and abroad, many Nigerians supported electoral heists just because they favored their persons, tribe, or religion are guilty.
Afterward, these same people will go to their religious houses, praying for peace, good governance, and prosperity. They look aside, unconcerned with the injustice, inequity, and unfairness their country is swimming in.
All of them are equally culpable in the destruction of this Guilty Nation.
They are complicit in selling Nigeria to the dogs.
They are not pretending to be building a country
From three regions, Nigeria was split into twelve states in 1967. This was in the wake of instabilities that erupted shortly after independence.
To commemorate the creation of twelve states the music maestro Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey crooned a song pleading for unity and togetherness of the new nation. Over fifty years later, Nigerians are still singing the same old song.
The same old song. But nothing has changed.
Why?
Because, in Nigeria, They are building no country anymore. All they are building is my tribe, and my ethnic group.
Every morning, before the commencement of school hours, our children sing our national anthem. The words of the first stanza conclude that Nigeria is one nation built and building on freedom, peace, and unity.
I wish I could share in their optimism. But seeing the realities on the ground, I can only shake my head.
How can we have freedom, peace, and unity on the foundations of injustice, inequity, and lies? How can we make progress when one tribe or the other is forever primed and ever-scheming to upstage the other tribes?
If this country is to move forward, religious people must stop praying insincere prayers.
Every Sunday, they carry their big Bibles and start rushing to their churches. I know because I’m one of them.
As part of church worship services, faithful believers pray along these lines.
“God Almighty, help our government to succeed at ruling Nigeria.”
“This government will favour me and my family.”
Imagine that! Just imagine that primitive mindset and shallow thinking.?
After they’ve bloodied and heisted themselves to the throne, the politicians cajole the rest of us with,
“Let us unite and build Nigeria together.” And “Come and let us pray for the government to succeed.”
Again I ask, if you are God Almighty (thanks be to God Almighty, that man is not God Almighty) will you answer those kinds of prayers?
Should Nigerians be praying for crooks and electoral thieves to succeed?
Truth is, many Nigerian Christians are more partisan politicians than they are Christians. And that’s why we are where we are today.
Stop praying for Nigeria’s mis-rulers.
Start calling for justice, truth, equity, and fairness.
You can’t be praying for a better Nigeria while still clapping your hands and edging on crooks, heisters, and their heisters-in-chief to succeed.
Stop wondering why we are where we are today because we Nigerians know that we deserve the mis-rulers we bring upon ourselves.
That we’ve been falling from one national crisis into another despite chains of endless prayers by religious people is not enough proof that God doesn’t answer prayers.
It should have been obvious to Nigerians by now that oceans of prayers avail nothing, so long as their hearts are set on all forms of individual and national wickedness.
If seasons refreshing are to come from God Almighty, the warnings of the Old Testament prophets to the renegade nation of Israel (of ancient times) are pertinent to today’s Nigeria.
As a country, we must acknowledge and turn away from the wickedness and perversity that has become the common denominator for many Nigerians.
We have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments.
~ Holy Bible (Daniel 9:5)
Having acknowledged our sins and wickedness, we must turn away from them and enthrone righteousness, justice, and equity.
But let justice run down like water, And righteousness like a mighty stream.
~ Holy Bible (Amos 5:24)
This is the only way to go if Nigerians are not to keep singing the same old song forever.
Thank you for reading this story originally published by the author in Medium’s Muse2Muse
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