For those of you who shiver at the revered word ‘Religion’, yes, you read my title right, under the guise of religion, we have succeeded in building a generation on rot, a generation with the foundation so decayed it will crumble at the slightest push. Now, if you understand me, I did not say Christianity or Islam, I said religion, because as a Christian, there are certain principles you are supposed to follow, but our
religious leaders prefer to play religion than to play Christianity or Islam.
I am a Christian and more knowledgeable in Christian doctrines, so Christians shouldn’t feel I have picked on them because this write up will focus a lot on Christians. The great Martin Luther King was a Reverend, but he was in the fore front of the fight for liberation, the Lord Jesus Christ personally entered the temple to disrupt illegal activities, and he was never afraid of telling the Pharisees and the Sadducees the truth even when they did not want to hear it and when they plotted to kill him.
But what we have today in Nigeria is a generation of leaders that has failed us but are constantly being embraced by the church and mosque.
These corrupt leaders have the front sit in the church and are the ones that pray in the front row with the imams in the mosque, this is to say, our generation of religious leaders have chosen to wine and dine with these corrupt leaders and further destroy the future of Nigeria.
They are always visiting the presidential villa to pray for our failed leaders. Refusal to speak up against the ills done against the great people of Nigeria is a silent act of approval by these religious leaders. Instead of joining in this fight against bad leadership, they encourage us to come to the church and mosque to pray, where we pay tithes and offerings, from which they buy the best cars, they send their kids out of the country to study, so they have nothing to lose.
You go there and pay them so they can afford everything the government has not given you, whereas, there are numerous church members who cannot feed their families, who walk to church, who cannot send their kids to school, same goes for the Imams and Sultans.
They simply ignore the numerous northerners with no education whatsoever, the hungry almajiris who have no means of livelihood, these guys remain ever so faithful they even sleep in the mosque, but their children die of polio and other preventable diseases.
They have no place to call home than the dirty enclaves they scramble in with their large families, the imams and pastors have not seen a reason to speak on our behalf and fight for a government that will be true to the people, so I can boldly say, our religious leaders have failed us, just in as much the same way as our political leaders have failed us, by deceiving us.
Fellow Nigerians, SHINE YOUR EYES… praying 24 hours a day will not solve our problems, God will not come down to solve our problems, we have to stand up as a people and fight for our rights, this Nigerian project is our project and we have to come together and make it work. Come 2011, we will vote people of integrity into power and we will stay there and defend our votes. As somebody I know always says “It is our problem, we can fix it”. Thank you.
Written by Adebayo Ifeoluwa