Come every national holiday, from Independence Day to the purported Democracy day or any religious celebrations the same messages are being reeled out year in year out by the ruling class. We see same pious pictures of them in the front row of the church or mosque with hymn books or the Muslim rosary with only the beaming clergy man at their front. The image they want us to see are those that shows their wives organizing festival parties for the privileged kids yearly. The message they pass to the nation is the same…pray for Nigeria, pray for unity, and let’s pray for a lasting democracy. I think it is about time we ask them what else they want us to ask God to do for Nigeria. Or how many years of unity and democracy as a nation do we require to have our roads fixed, Hospitals built, create employment and maintain constant power supply? This is 38 years after the civil war, apart from pocket of communal clashes here and there and of late the Niger-Delta crisis; Nigeria has been pretty much unified as a country. The only disunity in the country is between the ruling class and us the poor masses.

For us the post independence children, we have heard all this before and will continue to hear it again I suppose. For come next year, these same pictures, videos and messages are going to be replayed to us live again like a broken record. The exercise has sold in Nigeria for decades. It is the gimmick that has become a default of every government of Nigeria; they think us to be fools, they show leaders who demand staffs to swear oaths of secrecy to shroud the true state of their circumstances leading the clarion call of prayers for the nation. People who are cultists, ritualists and covert grave visitors occupy our national positions. They became very popular for amputating commoners for stealing a cow yet they haven’t lost a hair from their body since they were indicted for corrupt practices by the EFCC. Those are the kind that tells us to pray to Almighty Allah for mercy on the country. People who dare not stray into the UK or US over allegations of fraud dating back into decades parade themselves as part and parcel of a government that preaches ‘rule of law’. Persons of treasonable character who would have been guillotined if they were of another era for impoverishing Nigeria are now saying ‘they wished Nigeria luck’.

An x-ray of President Yar’adua’s independent day speech revealed what we all know; words like “unquenchable spirit, passion and courage of Nigerians” littered everywhere. A commendation of the “average Nigerian drive and uncommon resilience” is not what we need at this stage of our nationhood. What we need is the matching of what Yar’adua knows of the Nigerian people with honest, transparent and sincere leadership.

An item by Punch Newspaper of October 1, 2008, headlined: No quick fix to Nigeria’s problems; revealed the mind of an ill advised individual. For what Nigeria requires is a ‘quicker fix’ and not a quick fix. There is nothing working together in one piece in the country. The vigorous approach adopted by the Lagos state government in attacking the problems facing the state as quickly as possible is seen as popular by the masses. Mr. President has spent 17 months in office and at the rate going he will not get a second term even if the election were rigged again!

Even if the President doesn’t want a quick fix for Nigeria’s malaise where are the foundations for the long lasting solutions? 

We have been told for years that removal of government subsidies from oil will allow huge sums to be pumped into other sectors of the economy. We were told for 8 years, that our education will be better funded due to this removal, the agricultural sector will receive a big boost, roads will be better, health sector will be vibrant again but what did we get in return? A massive mis-management of the NNPC and the oil industry that was sat on by the ex-president for 8 years. For all our faith in democracy, what we got from the politicians are years and years of frustrations upon frustrations. If we say to Yar’adua that we don’t want a slow government, he should understand why. We have had patience for years and been fooled for too long. There are no activities in his government that shows that it is on the side of the masses. 17 months in a 4 year tenure is quite too much to study the ground truth of Nigerian problems. After all we were all here in the country before he became the president. We know what the common man lack on the streets of Lagos, Enugu Makurdi, and Jalingo. It won’t be too much to accuse Yar’adua that he wasn’t prepared for the post of president of Nigeria with the way things are at the moment or to say that he does not have a blueprint or strategy for the resolution of Nigeria’s hydra-headed problems. But he should be wise enough to do the simpler task; build roads, build new and equip old hospitals, create jobs, and help secure life and properties. That does not require 17 months to find a will to do.

People are not interested in messages from government quarters anymore. The general feeling is that of ‘what is it that government wants to tell us again this time?’ We know government doesn’t feel our pain, we know we just pray for continued peace and unity of the country while we see our supposed leaders steal billions. President Yar’adua should know this, or else why did he declare his assets? He knows  the people see them the ruling class as looters and criminals with lack of transparency. That’s why he decided to show us he is an honest man by telling us how much he is worth. Although that action of his doesn’t hold much water if his era as president is dormant in fighting corruption or if no other member of his government deemed it fit to do same.

We are tired of praying for Nigeria when we know the country is already blessed and then we see leaders steal to make it unblessed. We are also tired of seeing leaders and their spouses on national space showing piety and righteousness during national festivities. Until we see a positive buzz in the government, that attitude will remain.

Demola Adeniran

Robot  # 1 | 04.10.2008 06:36

Come every national holiday, from Independence Day to the purported Democracy day or any religious celebrations the same messages are being reeled out year in year out by the ruling class. We se...Read the full article.

Agidimolaja  # 2 | 07.10.2008 00:31

Demola, I'm on your side and I'm with you that God does not need our prayers over Nigeria. It is already long ago since I stopped praying for Nigeria or about anything Nigeria.The reason is this;I considered it as an insult to God when prayers are offered to Him about Nigeria and I admonished all our misguided folks to stop the bunch of useless nonsense called prayers for Nigeria. Look at what God had done for Nigeria.The stable weather.Vast natural resources.Very rich soil etc. Did we pray to Him before He gave unto us such vast wealths?No we did not. After He gave us all of the above {and several others that time and space did not allow me to list}, that we might be living in Paradise on Earth,guess what we did with the free gifts of God. We squandared and plundered everything he gave us for our own usage and for our own betterments. God in His mercy gave to us from among ourselves,leaders that He had endowed with great wisdom and knowledge and truthfulness etc. What did we do to those individuals? We either dubiously stopped them from taken over power at electoral polls or just kill them off, then installed upon ourselves puppets and sorry leaders. All of us have seen it with our own eyes what we did to ourselves and how we arrived at the pitiful state where we are today. But instead for us to repent and correct our faulty steps and start to march along the Divinely paved avenue of developments and economic bouyancy,we are still so foolish as to be shouting at the rooftop for prayers unto God. I asked myself;praying to Him for what? Asking Him to come and relieve us of the burden we knowingly placed upon our own backs? Praying to Him to come and get us out of the pit we ran ourselves into even when He gave us enough knowledge with which to get out of the pit? Such call to pray and such prayers are not only meaningless but more of insults to God. Look at it this way from human angle.You built a huge and beautiful house for someone so that he can live therein very comfortably for the rest of his life. He however urinated all over the place and stinks the entire house with feces and all kinds of dirts as such that the place is becoming so unliveable. He then started to call on you persistently to come and clean up the entire house for him. How would you feel,youngman? Would you not feel so grossly insulted? Would you not consider the man as ungrateful and so sorry? Whatever you may think and feel about him fits him perfectly.The last thing you would do however, is to descend so low as to be cleaning the house for that dog. Well,I see God from similar standpoint. He is being insulted by the so called prayers.Calling on Him to come and clean the mess we knowingly made is the worst insult given out to God except if He is not so recognized. It is as well sad to realise that those who are making the prayer calls on holiday times are the same marauders that plundered the nation's wealths and also laid waste the land. Unfortunate as it is,misguided church leaders quickly mounted their perverse pupilts and started to crow so noisily and annoyingly,praying for Nigeria. What we needed so urgently in Nigeria is not prayer.What we needed is to abide by the greatest law of that God unto whom we are fakely asked to pray - love your neighbour as yourself. God's golden rule can be realised even without going into prayer. Corruption,looting the treasury etc are evidences of not loving others as ourselves.If the leaders and their stooges love others as themselves,all the funds that God made available for betterment of all his people would not be stolen by few opportunistic cabals. What we needed is not prayers,it is change of hearts and love of humanity.

tomr  # 3 | 07.10.2008 04:01

If we could take 'God' out of the equation, we would see the rest for what it is - everyone clawing for what he/she can get, and blaming the nearest deity for anything that has gone wrong - or right, for that matter. But it would seem we are conditioned to ascribe to God everything that happens to us. Man is incapable of anything else but to fight for survival in an elemental way... Social instincts are not inherent, but learned, and useful only if it benefits us. If it doesn't, it is discarded. 'God has blessed this nation' will not feed the man who is hungry, and blaming those who got is into this mess is OK, but please leave out the 'God' equation. I, for one, would like to see an article where God, prayer, miracles and the like are done without... just the bare facts, please.