The Nigerian Perspective Of God, A Bane To National Development? -By Bright Ogundare

Walking through any major street in Nigeria, you see several religious centers Churches and Mosques. In every sector from education to politics to health to security to the economy, you can not separate the average Nigerian man from God and religion. In a research conducted by the pew center, a whopping 95% of Nigerians claim they say their daily prayers (the highest in the world). However, despite this high religiosity, Nigeria remains the headquarter of poverty in the world.

From childhood via parental training and our schools, children are indoctrinated into religious beliefs. Schools are breeding grounds for Christian or Muslim teachings, the assembly ground is nothing but a glorified morning devotion. It is rare to see a school that doesn’t perform these daily religious rituals. Children are trained to look up to God for solutions to their problems. You find it hard to understand mathematics? Just pray to God. Children are not trained and educated on the need for critical thinking but they are taught to look up to their friend in the sky for a solution. This has, in turn, created a generation of adults who cannot think to find solutions to their problems.

The average Nigerian resort to religious explanations for everything. Whether its inability to find a job? There must be a spiritual reason. A crashed business must be spiritual. Any time things go South, the average Nigerian resort to the comfort of religion. Fasting and prayers in the belief of an average Nigerian would resolve the economic challenges of the society and will, therefore, create jobs. Tell the average Nigerian he is poor and sees the vigor with which he would rebuke you. This inability to think deeply, accept reality and find a real solution has kept many Nigerians in the illusion of comfort when there is a crisis and gave them false hope when there is none. The political elites have capitalized on this weakness, everyone in power calls for prayer from the very people whom their intentional tactlessness and irresponsibility has condemned to misery.

The Nigerian religious society is based on selfishness and favoritism. The average Nigerian believes because he goes to Church or Mosques regularly, pays his tithe and prays, he must get the job when there are more qualified people. Religious leaders use every opportunity they have on the podium to tell tales of how people became rich without doing anything except following what they said, the principle of planning before success has been relegated to the backwaters and replaced by faith.

Furthermore, the religious Nigerian believes leadership is divine and ordained by a sky God and not the product of the consciousness of the followers. It is a belief that since God installs leaders, only he can correct and change them. Many Nigerians, therefore, do not bother to hold their leaders responsible, politicians stroll into the religious centers and are given godlike treatment. No one seems to bother if he is indicted by the EFCC, he is put there by God and he should be respected they always a reason. In the religious settings, it is the touch, not my anointed syndromes. No matter the fault in the leader, Nigerians prefer to be the sheep led to the slaughter.

This idea has, in turn, created a breed of parasite unrivaled in any society. Isn’t it heart-rending that a country with the highest number of poor people in the world has the largest contingent of rich politicians and pastors in the world?

Finally, as an individual, I am a secular humanist who accepts the scientific fact of Darwinian evolution and I don’t intend to force this on Nigerians, however, it is time the god perspective of the average Nigerian undergo a radical shift.

Bright Ogundare is a Secular Humanist, a social commentator and he can be contacted via brightogundare@gmail.com