By Nelson Fadoju
Hear Prof. Abel Idowu Olayinka, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, an applied geophysicist:
“AFTER INDEPENDENCE, IN ORDER TO BUILD A GREAT NATION, EACH COUNTRY WENT TO WORK._ *BUT IN NIGERIA, AFTER INDEPENDENCE (IN 1960), OUR PEOPLE WENT TO PRAY AND FAST.*
SO, WHILE WE WERE PRAYING, *MALAYSIA CAME HERE AND TOOK OUR PALM SEEDLINGS AND BUILT A GREAT FACTORY OF IT.*
WHILE WE WERE PRAYING, *SINGAPORE WENT INTO INVESTMENT IN TECHNOLOGY.*
WHILE WE WERE PRAYING, *INDIA WENT INTO ICT.*
WHILE WE WERE PRAYING, *CHINA WENT TO MASSIVE INDUSTRIALISATION* .
WHILE WE WERE PRAYING, *UAE WENT INTO MASSIVE INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT* .
WHILE WE WERE BINDING AND CASTING LUCIFER, *JAPAN WENT INTO TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT.*
WHILE WE WERE SPEAKING IN TONGUES, *DENMARK WENT INTO EDUCATION OF HER CITIZENS.*
WHILE WE WERE MOUNTING BIG SPEAKERS IN OUR PLACES OF WORSHIP, *USA WAS MOUNTING MAN ON THE MOON.*
After our prayers, *God, being a wise God decided to reward us according to our labour.*
*Since those that went into industrialisation, technology, infrastructural development, ICT, education etc have been rewarded accordingly.*
It’s only wise God rewards us with our efforts in prayers.
*That’s why today, Nigerian pastors are competing in building the biggest churches*
That’s why there are more prayer houses and worship places than hospitals and schools.
*That’s why people rush to prayer houses for medical and business solutions instead of hospitals.*
*That’s why we don’t do business visibility before jumping into it since we are going to back it up with prayers. And when it collapses, we blame devil.*
That’s why it’s a sin to say anything negative about Pastors and Imams.
That’s why our Pastors don’t consider the opinion of engineers while building and blame devil when the building collapses.
That’s why faith in God replaces building pillars and when it collapses we blame it on Lucifer.
That’s why our Pastors are making sure they plant Church branches *instead of schools on every street in Nigeria.*
*That’s why we always wait for God to do for us that which ability would’ve accomplished* .
*That’s why we want our teachers to labour on earth and go to heaven for their rewards* .
Nigeria is a prayer loving, God fearing nation. *Religion has taken the place of technology, infrastructure, education etc.*
When travelling, we ignore all the necessary road requirements, servicing of our vehicles and pray. And, once we pray, *we can put a half serviceable vehicles on the road and blame our step mothers or mothers in law if anything goes wrong.*
*That’s why there are more people dying on our roads than wild animals in the forest.*”
The Church is not to Blame
Let me ask our Vice Chancellor, Prof. Olayinka: When he was schooling, were there churches, colleges, higher institutions and economic industries or not before and after Independence ? Did our Prof. not passed through churches or Sunday School at most? What were the churches teaching then? laziness or hard work?
I am quite aware that most professors, lawyers, judges, and technocrats of then and now went to churches and mosques where they were taught good morals,character and hard-work. We learnt that hard work pays than laziness.
Unlike today, where People like to climb trees from the top while looking for money and cheap popularity.
Lazy people or bad Politicians should not be attributed to prayers and fasting. Such people lack foresight but, have bad blood in their veins because they refused to hearken to the Will of God Who Himself is not lazy but works diligently for good six days before resting on the seventh day during the creation of the Heaven and Earth in Genesis.
This same God and His only Son Jesus Christ who do not have siesta while working are the finisher of our faith Who good Christians emulate in life.
The Bible is apt on hard-work in the stories of the prodigal son and talent/coins, Cain and Abel etc.
The church made a larger percentage of us in high places better today.
When I was a student at UNIFE twice in late 70s/80s and twice at UI in 90s, all soul chapel then at the Faculty of Agriculture UNIFE, and Chapel of the Resurrection, UI contributed to what most of us are today based on the religious teachings coupled with prayers and fasting that we were taught at these two great institutions and other higher institutions after them within and outside Nigeria.
We prayed and fasted but, with good vision and foresight for a meaningful development.
We prayed and believed in the Yoruba proverb of – “Oju ole lagbado ngbo”(The maize grows rapidly in the eyes of lazy people). We built on that in life.
It is not true that after independence, prayer and fasting contributed to Nigeria’s failure to develop or build industries. History must not be upturned false-wise.
Facts are Sacred.
So those that were praying and fasting after independence were/are in the military and civilian governance viz: in National Assembly, House of Representatives, State Houses of Assembly. Are those that were/are praying and fasting the ones making and spending Nigerian budgets?
Those that are praying and fasting, what is their role in governance and their percentage then from 1960 and today where we are about 200 million in population?
Those that were/are praying, are they the ones in Government supervising our investments, the Central Bank, commercial banks and the economy? All these are far from the truth.
From record, those that were/are praying regularly are the critics of corruption and laziness to the extent that those who refuse to pray and fast are doing their stealing in their various offices of Nigeria thinking God does not see them.
Those that are not praying and fasting are the ones backing “sexually transmitted degrees” where these irresponsible, lecherous lecturers see female students as “fringe benefits” These set of lecturers use their reproductive organs as their “staff of office” in an illegal manner. They are part of those that refused to pray and fast, thus destroying the economy right from the cradle of knowledge and in other public spheres.
Attributing Nigeria’s failures by educated people to prayers and fasting is an absurdity of research and findings of which the Yoruba say “A f’ete sile, a npa lapalapa”.(Rather than attend urgently to a deadly disease, we are curing a minor one.)
There is no way the rot of of the problems confronting Nigeria can be shifted from our rulers from from First Republic to the present based on faulty policies and selfishness,refusal to obey the rules of law and Judiciary up to mass corruption and laziness which the church is always in the forefront campaigning against.
The church will say “work and pray” and not “don’t work but pray and fast”.
From history till date, the church goes further to establish schools, printing press, agricultural and commercial ventures to high standard which the Government at every level copied.
So, how come the church will be blamed for Nigerian woes when the contributors to the woes are left alone? This is unacceptable.
The truth and nothing but the truth must be told irrespective of our background, position and beliefs.
Thank you and God bless.
- Ven. Nelson Fadoju Ayekooto is the Director of Planning, Research and Strategy, Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, South-West Chapter
