Just My 2Kobo: Religion is the cause of Nigeria’s problems

BY IPHIE OBIECHINA

I know a lot of people would read this heading and be turned off by the heading of this write up, I would have been turned off too by the heading. I have battled with my self to come up with a less controversial but suitable heading, but for reason best known to ‘it’, that’s the name that keeps popping up so I am going to go with it and hopefully if you stick with me, you would see what I mean.

Like clockwork, when I wake up each morning I say a prayer and head out for morning mass and after I get back I go on Twitter and Facebook to get a download of what is going on in the lives of my family and friends that are far away. Recently though, I have noticed that I can’t scroll on my Facebook page  for a minute without coming across one ‘prayer post’ or the other. The post usually starts out with a sob story of a fellow, down on his/her luck and then suddenly the Lord blesses him/her with a miracle and his/her story turns around. The post is closed with you being asked to comment with an Amen or liking the post if you want such story to be yours too. Seriously you believe that if you type Amen in or like a post, your story would change, I don’t even waste time in deleting friends that I see commenting on or liking such post, I jejely delete and unsubscribe from their page, I cant be getting angry unnecessarily everyday.

So what has religion done here? My problem with religion here is that it has turned young, capable men and women into a lazy set of zombies. Lazy zombies who instead of going out to work have turned into miracle hungry humans, who believe that all they have to do is pray and suddenly they have the life D’banj  and Psquare have now. It has turned our youths into zombies that patiently wait for their miracles without going out to try to achieve their dream through hard work. Even the bible in James 2: 14 – 26 talks about faith and work, James rounds up by saying ‘… faith without action is dead’ (Good News Bible), the bible to my understanding tells us that we should have faith but that we should also work towards achieving that which we have asked God for. You don’t expect God to come down from heaven to do the work for you now do you? You know what ticks me off the most, the most ‘Amens’ and likes come from those who I expect to know better. My uncle used to say shows like Who wants to be a Millionaire, the Star Game show etc and MTN, GLO promos have turned Nigerian youths into a lazy lot, who now wait to win money off these shows and promos instead of going out to work hard to earn a living. Same can be said for the young mean and women, who instead of working hard, go about writing Amen and liking Facebook posts. The most annoying part of these stories is that they sound like something out of a storybook and are filled with grammatical errors. I am not saying don’t have faith, I am just saying be ready to work hard alongside that faith. Oh and don’t think that the ‘Amens’ and likes come from Christians alone; I have seen a couple of Muslim ‘Amens’.

The other thing that ticks me off with religion is the way my generation and the generation before us react to the situation of things in Nigeria. Instead of coming out to fight for and to defend our right or to speak out against our corrupt leaders, they go ‘it is not in my place to judge, it is God that would judge them’. Really so you believe God would come down and fight your battle for you, if that is what you think then you are on a long thing. To my understanding what Luke 6;37 means by “do not judge others, and God will not judge you” is that you shouldn’t go around saying things like ‘you would go to hell for stealing that yam’,  it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t call a spade a spade, the fact remains that the person is a thief and calling him/her a thief doesn’t mean you are judging him/her. God would only help us when we show him that we are tired of being trampled upon and make an attempt to change that, only then would God help us. I mean even God’s own chosen people, the Israelites, didn’t just lie back in their tents and wait for God to fight their enemies for them, no they went into battle against them knowing that God would come through for them. David could have just sat back when he sited Goliath, after all they God he served was bigger than a hundred Goliaths, but no he showed God that he was willing to find a solution to the problem and God saw him through.

My other issue with Christians has to do with the doctrine of ‘forgiving your enemies’. The ‘enemy’ in this case has to be the corrupt authorities. Christianity teaches us to forgive and forget whatever wrong may have been done to us and in my opinion, it is a very good way to live, as it gives you less to worry about. I am one for practicing the church’s teachings in every aspect of one’s life, so what am I on about? Well my problem comes up with the way Christians interpret this teaching in relation to public officers.  Yes we are to forgive public authorities when they wrong us, but that doesn’t stop you from reporting to the necessary disciplinary body. No it doesn’t mean you haven’t forgiven and forgotten the wrong that has been done to you or that you are seeking revenge, it just means you are sparing the world of the hardship that a corrupt official would cause. This takes me back to something that happened at my NYSC (National Youth Service Corp) orientation camp.

The story goes that a female soldier slapped a girl who refused to run to the parade ground after she had told the group the girl was walking with to run down to the parade ground. Apparently the girl was ill and therefore could not run  as was requested, she even had a pass from the clinic to prove it, upon getting to the soldier before she could make her excuse, the female soldier dished her some heavy slaps  and so she reported to the authorities. The soldier was eventually court martialed and had to appear to defend herself, in the end eyewitness account differed from what the girl reported and so the female soldier escaped punishment. Now the soldier went round the hostels asking us to thank God with her, the punishment she escaped must have been very serious for her to resort to this. Anyway this set off an argument in our hostel, the argument was that the girl in question should have forgiven the soldier as she didn’t know whether she might just drop down and die. I was of the opinion that the girl did the right thing by taking it to the necessary authorities, apparently this wasn’t the first time the woman had gone round hitting corp members. The corp members either went off in fear or decided to forgive her and forget it. That to me was the wrong approach as what they ended up achieving was exposing the society at large to a power hungry soldier who felt she was above reproach and could get away with anything. The court martial mellowed her down and I didn’t hear of any incident involving her and a corp member till I left the camp. It took a lot of courage, so the girl that reported her should be praised for stopping the growing menace that was this female soldier. It’s a shame that graduates could be that small minded, hiding behind religion and letting their rights be trampled on. I cant come up with any biblical backing for this, but I am very sure Christ doesn’t want you to sit back and have corrupt leaders get away with their crimes.

I don’t know anything about Islam, except maybe for the fact that Muslims believe Mohammed to be the last true Prophet of God, so I am not going to go into an area I know nothing about. But I am pretty sure Islam doesn’t not treat people with double standard, like I said I know nothing about Islam, but this is what I have been able to deduce from my Muslim friends. So I am still yet to understand why the Northern elite use religion as a form of bondage over the poor highly uneducated masses. Just recently we woke up to the news of the killing of nine-health worker who administered polio vaccines to young children, by unknown gunmen. A few days later we were told the killings were provoked by comments of two radio presenters on a show, where the claimed polio vaccinations were not in line with Islam. Now I don’t know what Islam says about polio vaccinations so I am not going to comment on that, my grouse is with the Northern elites who use religion to continue to hold the northern masses captive, who live by a double standard. They live by a double standard because we all know children of these elite get vaccinated against polio. I just realized why they would have a double standard, discouraging them from being vaccinated would ensure that they masses keep churning out ‘al majiris’ who they can use for their mischievous intentions. Another area of double standards is the boko haram sect that claims everything western is bad but still continue to use western ways to advance their cause. The use of cars as vehicles for their suicide bombers, use of the media to tell their story, use of advanced military guns etc . These are the double standard I mean, people who should otherwise know better, people who are educated use religion as a way of enslaving the uneducated masses.

I have no grouse against Christianity or Islam as religions, I am a very devout Christian, like I said earlier I attend mass every morning, not because I am forced or because the bible says so, I attend mass every morning because I love it, it gives me the opportunity to say thank you to my God. My grouse is with Christians and Muslims who hide behind religion to perpetrate evil, who hide behind religion to shy away from doing the right thing. Christianity or Islam is not the problem, Christians and Muslims are.

The earlier we stop hiding behind religion to cover up for our laziness or to perpetrate evil, the better for us. Its time for the priests and pastors to start telling their members simple truths, you must work hard alongside prayers, to enjoy the good things of life. You must fight for what you believe in, believing that God would see you through. You must fight for you nation by fighting corruption with God's help of course. Its time for the Northern elites to set the 'enslaved masses' free, its time for them to start telling the truth, its time for them to stop hiding behind their own version of Islam.

This is just my 2kobo’s worth, you may agree with me, you may not, that’s just the way I see it!