Nigeria; The Prayer Capital Of The World -By Olanrewaju Osho

The Prayer Map of the world is out. Unsurprisingly, Nigeria topped the chat with 95% and China came last with only 1%. The clear take home from the map is that the praying nations are the poorest nations and the least praying nations are the most developed nations.

This confirms Apostle Paul’s theology that faith without work is death.

Nigerians have always been a religious people even before colonization. In Yoruba land our fore fathers worship Ogun, Sango and other deities. Years under colonial rule did not take away our people’s strong religious passion. This gave the missionaries a lot of troubles when they came. They brought religion anchored on faith whereas our people worship what they can see.

The missionaries adjusted their message to reflect Nigerian culture and Christianity became accepted. Islam also became accepted because our people love the ideals it presented as well as the fact that it did not significantly alter Africans marital orientation of polygamy.

Christianity brought in western education through the mission schools. Many mission schools were also established by the various Islamic sects. The common ground for these schools was that the curriculum was infused with moral values and sound work ethics that build good societies.

As faith grew, side by side education with values we witnessed progress of some sorts. But as time went on, government came in and took over the schools. Moral instructions communicated in assembly halls were removed. Focus was more on education rather than on values. Sadly, the same government began to slide backwards in provision of infrastructures for sustainable development. The standard of living of the people began to drop forcing the people to depend more and more on God for basic survival needs that the government should provide.

When people flocked to churches in the beginning, it was in search of eternal life. But as government became rudderless and anti-development, things became harder for the people economically. People flocked to churches and other religious houses for survival. As people flock to churches and religious houses in search of things government should do, religion became a business for unscrupulous people. Religion became opium of the masses.

As religion became the opium of the masses for succor, encouragement, solace and comfort, jobless people and ambitious ministers saw opportunity for self-establishment, relevance and quick prosperity rushed in to announce themselves prophets and apostles. Because they are lazy, their teachings and style of ministry promotes laziness.

To prevent their members from being stolen and to add new members in the name of miracle services, many of the established ministries joined the band wagon of the self-announced men of God to organize all manner of call to prayer meetings.

The traditional vigil prayers soon became either not enough or totally unconstitutional. Special prayer meetings are now organized at 6am, 7am and 9am. People close down their businesses or escape from their offices for an average of over four to six hours at least once weekly during working hours to go for miracle prayer services. A new culture of praying your way to breakthrough or happy marriage even if you are not ready to work for it became the order of the day. While Chinese are in the factory producing our phones, electronics and tooth picks, Nigerians are in churches praying. While Europeans are building new factories to turn Africa’s raw materials to manufactured products that will be shipped back to Africa, factories are closing down all across our cities and churches are buying them up to convert them to worship and prayer houses.

Then corruption entered massively to worsen the already bad governance problem, many Muslims and Christians in civil service in partnership with politicians who are also in partnership with contractors began to shortchange the nation and prosperity without sweat flourished. Unfortunately, these people go back to their religious houses to testify and attribute their shady success to prayers and faith.

As people see Prosperity without sweat from their friends, classmates, colleagues etc. they secretly desire prosperity without sweat and began deluding themselves that they could pray their way into it. Money without hard work and without sweat became a culture. It became a cancer. This is not an issue to joke about across social media platforms. It’s a cancer that we must use good governance and national orientation to address. The time to start is now.

Prayer is good. There is no doubt about it. The Lord Jesus commanded the believers to pray without ceasing. A good Muslim must pray 5 times in a day. Judaism theology established hours of prayers and a good adherent may need to pray up to 8 times in a day. For our devotion to prayers to promote national productivity and prosperity we must travel in the route of balance. One good example of this in the map is USA. Americans rank high with 55% and yet it is the richest country on earth.
How to find balance with our work and our faith in Nigeria is an urgent task that we all must pursue conscientiously.

Olanrewaju Osho is a pastor, a development and communication specialist and a nation builder. He was the Senatorial Candidate of the Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party (ANRP) for Senate FCT in the 2019 General Elections.