One patient cured, is one customer lost for the doctor. One rich man who becomes broke, is one customer lost for the robber. One car owner who becomes car-less, is one customer lost for the mechanic. One conflict resolved without going to court, is one customer lost for the lawyer. In the same manner also, a prosperous country will be an existential threat to the religion business.
Today when you enter a Church service, after Sunday school (for churches that still hold Sunday school), the entire prayer session before commencement of service is all about things our government is meant to do for us and has refused to do. The prayer to thank and really worship God, is usually the first and doesn’t last more than a minute and the energy is low. It is when prayers relating to government failures are raised that brethren begin to sweat it out.
In other words, whether you realized it before now or not, the reason your pastor and church is still relevant in your life is primarily because, government has failed in its core responsibility to provide health, education, jobs, justice, and opportunities for the citizenry. If those things were provided timely as it is done in other countries, how many of us will verily, verily, find time to go to church everyday of the week like we are presently doing here?
If there was adequate and subsidized or all expense paid health provision for citizens, when you are sick, you won’t bother to call a preacher. If there was strict adherence to the Universal Basic Education law that exempts school fees at the 9 years of basic education level and accessible scholarships and student loans for universities, you won’t go to church to pray for school fees for your kids. If there was security and a dial to 911 can bring a police van to your location in 10 minutes regardless of your status, you won’t be speaking in tongues and calling a preacher when you are terrified.
If Amuwo Odofin industrial complex, Ilupeju industrial complex, Matori industrial complex, Oregun industrial complex, Bompai industrial complex in Kano, etc, which have all been overtaken by churches, were still working, the night vigil venues won’t be filled up because people have work to go to in the morning. If career growth was guaranteed by merit and not ethnicity and nepotism, you wouldn’t bother to go ask a preacher to pray for favor for you, over others.
If there were standardized and properly regulated counseling centers, you will realize some of the emotional, relationship and psychological struggles, and so called ancestral curses, you are contending with, are not spiritual. They are things professionals will deal with. If there was food security in the country and not rice-and-noodles-palliatives, you will realize that God’s work in your life is beyond food.
A preacher’s only profession is to comfort you in the absence of other workable solutions. And that is where they thrive and earn their relevance and control over our lives. So it is in the preacher’s interest to ensure the country remains in squalor and penury so that the masses will run to them. It is only in nations where the manufacturing chimneys are not oozing smoke that hundreds of thousands of citizens still fill up religious houses. Every Tom, Dick and Harry, wakes up today and claims to have been called only because they know they will make sense to an impoverished population and milk them without retribution.
Europe was like that after the second World War. After the bombing of industries and homes, the pervasive hopelessness drove their people to churches in search of hope. The religious spaces were filled up to the brims, characterized by the rise of protestantism. After the reconstruction and the industrial revolution, those places are becoming museums and parks and pubs. Same will happen here someday, when our country rises.
Today, the pulpits and the political podiums are working hand in hand and actively conniving to make sure this country doesn’t progress. They relish in creating mammoth crowds with herd mentality, who have made it a duty to shout at God to solve their problems, instead of holding leadership accountable. For such is the path of a hypnotized population until their manacles will be broken by a spark of grace.
Yours sincerely,
Citizen Agba Jalingo is the Publisher of CrossRiverWatch and a rights activist, a Cross Riverian, and writes from Lagos.
NB: Opinions expressed in this article are strictly attributable to the author, Agba Jalingo, and do not represent the opinion of CrossRiverWatch or any other organization the author works for/with.
Leave feedback about this