Why are they mocking God? -By Festus Adedayo

Africa reared her ugly head again in Nigeria recently. The Nigerian army, at a seminar held at the Nigeria Army Resource Centre in Abuja with the theme Countering Insurgency and Violent Extremism in Nigeria through Spiritual Warfare, organised by the army’s Directorate of Chaplain Services Roman Catholic, Protestant and Directorate of Islamic Affairs, said that the battle to counter insurgency in Nigeria could only be finally nipped in the bud through a spiritual reconnaissance. The Chief of Army Staff, General Tukur Buratai, was represented at the occasion.

Buratai made a huge intellectual contribution to the theory of terrorism when he stated that as an ideology, recruits into it needed a superior ideology to stem its tide. He had said, “By its nature, ideologies have the power to manipulate what people think, inform their opinion and direct their attitude. It is a well-known fact that terrorism and terrorist groups will not be totally eliminated by mainly military actions. This means focusing our effort on the underlying narratives through ideologies that are employed by these terrorist groups to lure innocent citizens into their fold. Communities and the states need to be joined with the common purpose of rejecting the ideology of this group and those who exposed them. This can be better achieved through the provision of appropriate counter narratives targeted at the ideology of the terrorist group.”

Buratai and his ecumenical accomplices gathered at the conference however polluted the logic by submitting that the military could not eliminate terrorism and terrorist groups alone except religious bodies and organizations were enlisted to be in the “forefront of this spiritual battle.”

Last week, the Borno state government was also reported to have contracted 30 Saudi-based clerics to pray for peace in the state. Early January in Zamfara State, the government called on its people to embark on three-day fast and intensive prayers for God’s intervention in the banditry and kidnapping that had seized hold of the state. Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Alhaji Bello Dankande, made the call in Gusau. He had said: “We believe that the fast and prayers will facilitate Allah’s intervention for both the safety and success of our security men and bring the ugly situation to an end.”

Between Buratai’s spiritualism, Borno’s wastage of public funds on the Saudi-based clerics and Zamfara’s call for God’s intervention is a middle and latent escapism which is the abdication of government’s responsibility and finding an escape route in the hands of whoever. Yes, God does intervene in the affairs of men but if men resolve to hand over their matters to God, they don’t need humans at all. Thus, Buratai and the man who called himself a state governor who is flattering his hands in the sky in surrender should not be in their positions if they cannot perform the responsibility of securing the people.

Routes like these are followed by men when in a surrender mode. God has given man enough wisdom, enough wherewithal to combat evils as the current insurgency in Nigeria. He does not expect us to overload Him with needless requests that are right in our hands. It is the same calamity that befalls any people whose government is on recess like Nigeria’s. Our frequenting churches/mosques and other spiritual places for salvation from purely earthly and existential crises is benumbing. On working days, men and women gather in Nigeria, Africa to seek solutions to problems which a good government can solve. Health solutions, jobs etc are not burdens we should encumber God with but governments. When we crowd spiritual places like this, it is only an indication of governmental hopelessness.

Let us come together and fight governments that are making our existence miserable, rather than making unnecessary and, pardon this, idiotic requests that make us subjects of mockery in the comity of nations. Solution to insurgency is in purchasing modern war equipment, training the soldiers, paying them adequately and not requesting that God should fight the insurgents. He will not answer! Buratai and other “spiritual” officers and governors who should  ordinarily resign if they are overwhelmed.