The Nigerian And His Almighty God
The title of this article has already caught the eyes of the Nigerian. The Nigerian wants to read this article to the end not because he has a good reading culture. Aye. He wants to read this article for two reasons. First, because the article is addressed to a Nigerian and he is one. Second, because the article mentioned God and the Nigerian does not joke with his God. The Nigerian worships his God on Fridays and Sundays, sometimes everyday.
The Nigerian is confronted with political and economic frustrations. He voted for change but now seems to live in chains. Therefore, the Nigerian always compares his present to his past and loses hope in the future. He loses hope in the future because he believes that his past is better than his present. He hears of countries where electricity supply has not been interrupted in the last decade.
He hears of countries where housing is affordable and unemployment is minimal. The Nigerian does not see these things in his own country. So, he believes that one day, when he dies, he will go to heaven where his Almighty God lives. There, everything will be fine.
But while still on earth, the Nigerian wears the garb of laziness and the cap of wishful thinking. The Nigerian finds going to the toilet too much of a work; he fasts and prays, waiting for his Almighty God to fetch him some tissue paper and some buckets of water to flush the water closet. The Nigerian does not want to do anything; his Almighty God can do everything.
The Nigerian is witnessing a feeble political system, budget padding, economic sabotage and skyrocketing inflation in his country as I write. What has the Nigerian been doing? He's been hoping; he's been criticizing; he's been praying, going from one prayer ground to another - begging his Almighty God to remember Nigeria, to turn Nigeria around for good. The Nigerian believes that everything Nigeria needs to work is prayer, not a revolution.
The Nigerian ignores the French revolution, how the oppressed revolted against tyranny and absolutism and ended up beheading a monarch so that France would be fair to all. The Nigerian will never fight for his rights, so his oppressors playfully says he is a resilient people.
Apart from the systemic oppression the Nigerian has been subjected to, he is confronted with security challenges. Kidnapping and insurgency are two demons that stare the Nigerian in the face. How has the Nigerian been tackling it? He's been condemning the attacks; he's been pleading the blood of Jesus; he's been going down on his kneels to pray for Nigeria, calling on his Almighty God to deliver Nigeria.
The Nigerian does not believe in the law enforcement agencies and would not provide them with the information that is needed to combat crimes. He does not know that the first step towards combating crimes is to help security personnel with intelligence gathering. The Nigerian leaves everything to his Almighty God.
Again, the Nigerian hardly gives a logical explanation to the puzzles he encounters in life - he says that things first occur in the spiritual world before they occur in the physical world. He says, therefore, that the physical world is a shadow of the spiritual world. So he takes the spiritual world, the unseen world, more seriously. When the Nigerian starts a business, he ignores customer service and says that it is his Almighty God that brings clients.
When the Nigerian travels, he commits his vehicle to the hands of his Almighty God and does not bother to carry extra tyres - his Almighty God can turn a stone into an extra tyre if the need arises. The only time the Nigerian does not wait on his Almighty God is when he falls sick. Then, he rushes to the hospital, often at the point of death, and does not argue with the doctor. He does not want to die. Poor Nigerian!
Wealth comes by working hard. The Nigerian will fight you if you tell him this. To him, wealth comes by sleeping in the church and waking up in the mosque. It is the Almighty God, the Nigerian says, that gives wealth to those he chooses. So the Nigerian does not invest. Aye. He does not save too. He squanders his money on himself and the things of the his Almighty God, servicing the greed of some rascals who pretend to be the servants of the Almighty God.
At last, the Nigerian has got to the last paragraph of this article. And this is where you would find two types of Nigerians. The first type of Nigerians are those who would laugh at themselves, determined to change, and probably share this article with other Nigerians. The second type of Nigerians are those who already hate themselves, resistant to change, and would curse this writer, thinking this writer is sick and needs the intervention of the Almighty God in his life. Whatever the case may be, this writer wrote this article under the inspiration of his own Almighty God because he is himself a Nigerian.
Ademule David is a student of human society and crime; he lives and writes from Lagos where he goes about, mostly at night, carrying his magical pen in his pockets.