Hope 2023: Government Is Not God

Hope is a virtue that mankind is forever blessed with it. When everything seems to be impossible and even irredeemable, humans hold on. To a larger degree, we live because we hope. About eight years ago, the majority of Nigerians were hopeful of a new government whose shoulder was supposedly wide enough to dry all tears. They had looked unto the incoming president, now the incumbent to address all their woes and anxieties, including the ones that were created through their own negligence and horrible indiscipline. They looked unto " Baba" for an impeccable turn around. In fact , they had hoped Baba would address all the problems bedeviling the country and in effect, everyone would be dramatically successful. Today, whether Baba has addressed all their problems or not is for them to decide. Just like any government, it will either solve the problem or create one. Has Baba created new problems or allowed the sorrowful state to exacerbate? For me, the answers are at best ideological. The conclusion is for each person to draw.

Now to 2023, my people have again started with their usual drumming and chanting. "Here is the man", the "Messiah is here" , naira will equal dollar and a bag of rice will go for chickenfeed. My teacher will say " Na today". Succinctly interpreted as " We have had enough of such". Sadly a lot of people will buy into these usual "brilliant lies" or "sadistic lies". Many are just victims of hallucination and unchecked ideologies. Is the incoming government truly honest about addressing the security problems and the economic tragedies? Is the next man well - equipped to get us out of this economic gutter and quagmire? Is the next man dedicatedly serious about the repositioning of the state of the nation? To those who hope the next man, whoever he may be, is coming to address all our problems, is nothing but mere joker. Government is not God. According to the Bible, God parted the sea to achieve His goal of seeing the Israelites truly free. Does the next man have this attribute? Can he sacrifice his desires and personal agenda to hand down freedom to the people?

Going further, the Bible accounts that God created all things in six days and rested the seventh day. Can the next man work and tirelessly work to see the nation repositioned before asking for rest. Will the next man, come 2023 stay with us to feel our pain, get treated in our messy hospitals and use our perennially bad roads? Will he submit to our pain or jet out at the slightest perception of headache? To these and many more, we do not know. Therefore, let us hope in our own resolve to push back the evil titans in government and put up a united front to ask any failing government to go. Our hope is my hope. Let us at least place our hope in ourselves and not in a government. Government is not God.