OPINION: Nigeria’s Challenges Beyond Prayer, by Saheed Ibrahim

This article is written neither to hurt the feeling of any religion nor to offend the mind-sets of everyone who belongs to any of the three major faiths in the country – Traditional, Christianity and Islam. I just want us to open our hearts to digest this and answer certain questions I seem to ask in this article. The intent is to open our minds and look beyond our ignorance and forge a better nation. I intentionally decided not to quote from any scripture used by any of the three religions because I need to speak as a realist. The first word in the title of this article would have been “Religion” but I decided to use “Prayer” because that is what the three major religions in Nigeria rely on as their “strength and shield”. Then I ask, “How much has prayer helped us as a nation?”

“Only prayer can help this country” – this is the sentence I hear from people around and prominent people in the country all the time. It has gone so deep-rooted into us that whenever something needs to be done, we simply say “God will do it”. I keep hearing this on daily basis and I keep waiting for the day all those prayers will be answered but it seems that the longer I wait, the farther we are from answers to the prayers.

As a young boy who grew up in an environment that encompasses people from the three major religions in the country, I have learnt a lot of things from the three. One commonest thing to them is “Prayer”. There is no religion where prayer is not a unique feature, if not the major one. Day in, day out, we all say our prayers and we do remember to pray for the good of the nation. But the manifestation of these prayers does not reflect in our socio, political and economic lives. Then I keep asking myself, what happened to the prayers? Is God not listening or are we not praying the way we should? Or is there anything we are missing out?

Different churches, mosques, pastors, Imams, traditionalists and many religious groups have organised and continued to organise many prayer meetings for the good of the nation. In fact, I have read many times when some religious leaders will recommend “Fasting and Prayer” for Nigeria to be better, for armed robbery to stop or for the “demons of corruption” to “fly out from the hearts of everyone. I used to join them in these prayers back then in secondary school but not anymore, not even in the near future. I have come to realise that we need more than prayer, we need to look beyond. I have also come to realise that “Prayer” is the excuse we give for our many failures as a nation.

In April, Governor Samuel Ortom suggested that the only way out for the carnage in Benue state to end was fasting and prayer. But, what has been the result of the prayer? The killer Fulani herdsmen have spread to almost every part of the nation. Currently, their presence is being felt in the South-West.

Some traditional  worshipers in Niger Delta, popularly Egbesu deity

As Nigerians, we have relied solely on the creator, who created us and empowered us to achieve many feats. We keep on running back to God to solve the problems we have created, when we should have done otherwise. We keep praying, praying and praying but personally, I do not see any answers to those prayers. Not because I do not believe in God but for the fact that I refuse to follow the path of the lot who think the only way to solve every problem is prayer. Prayer definitely works but not in all aspects of life.

Let me momentarily believe that prayers will solve all the problems in the country but I will like to ask, “How do we pray to God for Nigeria?” Christians dogmatically claim they pray to the true God, Muslims dogmatically claim Islam is the only true religion while traditionalists claim that they have been with Africans before the incursion of Christianity and Islam and things were not this bad then. In our chauvinistic beliefs and debauched minds towards other religions, we pray to our acclaimed “Only true God” for the same nation. We conceive hatred for those who do not follow our religious paths. While at that, we pray for the goodness of all. I want to ask, how can light and darkness operate in the same place at the same time? You cannot hate a fellow man because of his beliefs and you seek divine help. We should understand that every human is a representative of God on earth and whatever hatred you hold against a fellow human is against God. How will you pray to that same God and expect answers? Professor Kehinde Ayantayo in his inaugural lecture titled “Rescuing God from the Abductors” dealt with this issue of every religion building walls around God and claiming it serves the only true God.

Some Islamic worshipers in Nigeria

The chief Imam of Akure, Alhaji Yayi Akorede, in an interview emphasised that prayer cannot solve the problems in Nigeria if we do not love one another. He suggested that everyone, irrespective of religion and social orientation, we need to be united and love one another. This is the only way our prayers can be answered.

In his own reaction, the Resident Pastor of First ECWA Church, Akure, Pastor Bankole Orisafunmi identified that the challenges the country faces do not just start today, adding that they built up to the apex where they become uncontrollable.

He stated emphatically that prayer is powerful but there are many things we need to do before we pray, so that the prayer can be answered. He advised that every Nigerian must live a life sacrifice and do away with their extravagant lifestyles.

Interestingly, within each religion are many divisions. A friend of mine went for an interview in a university established by a religious body (I choose not to mention name), the first question on the test paper was which church do you attend?  Once your answer to the first question is not the church that owns the university, you are done with the interview. This is the trend across most universities owned by both Muslim and Christian groups. Orthodox churches are detested by those in Pentecostals. Catholics are seen as image worshipers and so many divisions within the Christian faith. In Islam, the Ahmadiyahs are different from the Tijaniyahs. The Sunnis and the Shias see things differently. We all see God as ours alone and we bear hatred for others while at it. I do laugh when we now call on the same people that we hate that “we should all pray to God for the good of Nigeria”. Is that not funny to you as well? If you were God, would you have answered that kind of prayer?

Economically, Nigeria has been experiencing downturn for many decades. Many efforts of the government and individuals to savage the situation seem not to yield the desired result. To mention, various avenues have been used to pray for the economy to grow as well. Ask yourself, what do you want God to do exactly? Grow the economy for us or send investors from heaven?

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In 2017, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo stated that “Prayer cannot grow the economy” but collective efforts of everyone. This statement generated a lot of reactions from religion leaders and bigots, claiming that only God has the power to do all things. Of course it is only God who can, but this same God gives man all the resources of the earth to make use of for the betterment of himself and his environment.

Some Christian worshipers in Nigeria

I vividly remember the response of the former media aide to Nigeria’s immediate past President, Goodluck Jonathan, and Doyin Okupe. Okupe faulted the position of the Vice President (who is a pastor) that “prayer and fasting can actually help Nigeria out of the current economic situation and other crisis”. Let us ask Okupe, “What happened to the prayers prayed when he was with President Goodluck Jonathan? What happened to all the prayers the league of Imams and Pastors showered on Jonathan to win the election? If Okupe’s position was to be true, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, by the power of prayer, would have won the 2015 presidential election but Voting decided the winner, not prayers.

For Pastor (I choose to use) Osinbajo to tell us prayer cannot grow the economy, should we not open our minds and eyes to see things clearly? If you type on Google “Pray for Nigeria”, you will be marvelled at different headlines, websites and groups you will see on how prayer will heal the nation. I even came across “60 powerful prayer points for the 2019 general elections”. When are we going to get it right? When are we going to understand the message that we need to look beyond prayers?

Whenever I listen to news or read about many countries that have passed through fire and ice but today are among world powers, I wish we could learn better. America did not gain independence from Britain through prayers; neither did she become the world power through prayer. China and Japan suffered lots of causalities during the Second World War. Today, they are the places we Nigerians run to for greener pastures. Did they rely on prayers to be better? Let us even ask, what kind of generational curse have we been praying to remove from our lives? I only have one answer for this, the curse of dogmatism and the belief that only prayer will cure us of the madness in the land.

We fold our arms to do the needful but open our mouths agape to shout unto God to come to our aids. We have all it takes to grow but seek divine fertilizers. We hide but call on God to show us the way. In our individual rooms, we selfishly seek means to be more successful than others, but when among others, we pray for the good of all. We pray and we pray and we continue to pray.

Aside politics and the entertainment industry, the religious sector (if we can add that to Nigerian economy) booms more than any other sector. Many religious houses and groups are established on daily basis and each of them claims to be closer to God than others or see what others do not see. I have lost count of how many churches or mosques we currently have in the nation and how many denominations we have within each religion. But I know vividly well that the number of churches and mosques in Nigeria are more than the number of schools and development centres.

Many people donate millions of naira to churches and mosques but add no benefit to mankind. Many of us even steal from the masses and take to churches and mosques and our religious leaders will shout 7 Hallelujah and Takbir for our assumed good gestures. Special prayers are even held for us for doing a job well done. When they want to help us to deepen our mysteries, they organise special prayers for the jobless and the poor by 9am during week days. We need to pray and pray and you will see attendees in large numbers. If these myriads of prayers work as we believe, why are so many of us still jobless? Why does poverty continue to ravage the poor but the rich continue to be richer?

Ask yourself, how many rich people in your church or mosques attend all the organised programmes. They and your religious leaders know that they need to put effort in order to remain successful. Well, they do help you – they recruit you as part of prayer warriors to pray for them to be more successful because they are out there fetching money and bringing it to the church/mosque. They build many schools and universities with the little coins we have left but when they are done, we cannot afford to send our children to these institutions. Do we still need to pray again or we need to wake up?

I am not arguing that we should not pray or we should stop attending our various worship centres. All I want us to see is that the right things need be done by us. Many self-inflicted problems we bring to God on a daily basis. To worsen the situation, we always attribute our problems to the society, government or one evil person in our family that does not want us to prosper. Hence, prayer must be said.

Let us go into more serious issues in the country. Corruption – the general name we give all social vices in the society, is it divine or man-made? If this is answered, then the solution is right there in front of us. We all created this menace with our actions and inactions. We dissatisfied others in order to satisfy our own needs and wants. Everybody is running the survival race. We have become savages of our own making and guess what, when things are out of hand, what do we do? – pray to God to clean our mess. Do we now see our Supreme Being as a mess cleaner?

Many African nations that do not have our strengths are doing better with less prayer. Why can’t we? We need to let go of our dogmatism and look beyond prayers. Our characters need to be fine-tuned. Over reliance on prayers has done us no good thus far. It takes us backward and we are blinded by the belief that only prayer can turn the tide of the nation around. We have been doing this for long but with no result. The second law of insanity is “When we do the same thing over and over and expecting different result”.

Also, we should respect our diversity. The strength of Nigeria is what we have ignored and detested thus far – diversity. We all must not face the same direction. We need to see the same things from different angles in order to make informed decisions. Hausas should not be seen as killers. Ibos should not be seen as thieves and Yorubas should not be seen as traitors. There should be both religious and cultural sensitivity. If we want to grow together, we must be sensitive and respect the peculiarities of every party involved.

Change begins with me and you. I am not talking about the change promised by President Buhari. I mean change of any attitude and behaviour that undermines the development of others and of the country. I cannot hate you and wish the society will be better. I cannot engage in actions and inactions that undermine the good of others and hope we will grow together. We need to do away with all sorts of behaviours that hold us back. Nigeria is a home of many Nigerians. If everybody is good, then the nation is good.

Rather than celebrating the commissioning of more prayer centres, let us commission development centres. The state of schools in Nigeria is worrisome but our religious centres are gloriously designed and decorated. Why can’t we have a change of focus? I am not agitating that worship centres should be neglected, I am saying that we should strive to make humanity better: this will make God happy with us all.

Lest I forget, we need to also pray afterwards. Pray when all is done. Pray when the right efforts are made. Pray when we have unity in diversity. Pray when the good of one is seen as the good of all. Prayer should be a seasoning, not the main course meal to development.