Is religion in Nigeria a ruse? There is a strong case that it is with the cast of charlatans who corral people to scam sites they call churches and proceed to rip them of every last naira. The case that it is given heft by the iconoclasts who turn mosques and prayer sessions into interviews where they brainwash the impressionable and conscript the gullible into terror groups.
As Nigeria has hastened into harm in a haze of hideous hypocrisy, the elaborate hide-and-seek game which hoodwinks Nigerians and raises the hackles of a people ever on edge has religion as its hub.
For indeed, many of those who subject the Nigerian public office to depredation call upon a good God on Fridays and Sundays. Nigeria`s deadliest terror groups are stuffed with men who hide behind the lofty standard of Islam to sink into the depths of depravity and devastate communities and families.
A country where churches and mosques exist cheek by jowl eating up every spare space grows weary by the day of those who not only call on the name of a good God in vain but use His name to deny others the right to a name.
Nigeria`s historic difficulties with leadership which has seen the rudderless ship of the country sailing for wreckage at record speed has particularly assailed religion. If anything, religion in Nigeria has failed to provide the kind of courageous moral leadership it is abundantly capable of.
This absence of courageous moral leadership has had a particularly chilling effect on the rest of the society as a biting lack of moral authority leaves too much room for vices cunningly disguised as virtues.
Mr. David Oyedepo of the Living Faith Church Worldwide is one of Nigerias most recognizable pastors and spiritual leaders, arguably its richest and one of its most revered. Since 2015, he has ventured many opinions on the state of the country which has had the government of Mr. Muhammadu Buhari on pins and needles. The messages which Mr. Oyedepo has always described as prophetic have been unforgiving, unsparing and plainly spoken with the trenchancy of their precision showing that they are not meant to soothe. He is certainly one of Nigerias most courageous pastors.
Recently, however, he starkly warned all those who criticize men of God of impending leprosy if they kept up their withering criticisms of their shepherds. Mr. Oyedepo drew from the bible. In Nigeria, many Christians and Muslims draw from the holy books to unwittingly justify and even enable the perilous state of the country. For instance, Christians admonish that God alone should be the sole judge and no one else but with everything happening in Nigeria at the moment, what are Nigerians to do? Who really should judge?
This early in the year, a message that criticism attracts leprosy like that certainly smacks of precarity, curiosity and hypocrisy because the question must be asked whether Nigeria, especially as regards those who steer its ship in various areas, does not stand in need of more critical voices – no matter how strident and even virulent – and not less. Does a country making a blind dash for the precipice not deserve the redemptive rebuke of a vigilant citizenry to at least give it a chance to rethink and retrace its steps?
With everything happening in Nigeria at the moment, the duty to criticize must be seen to be at the core of citizenship in Nigeria. To criticize trenchantly must be seen as an act of service to a dangerously ailing country. To refuse to criticize must be considered a disservice, even a traitorous one.
Mr. Oyedepo warns of the imminence of leprosy, that disease that lacerates the skin with lesions. But as things stand, is Nigeria not a country afflicted by leprosy? Does the country not suffer from the kind of leprosy that afflicts those countries which refuse to destroy by sterilization the bacteria that causes governments and institutions to become leprous?
If Nigeria is not leprous, why do its young people want nothing to do with the country, electing instead to flee in droves on journeys to places they do not know for greener pastures that may never be? If Nigeria is not leprous why does corruption continue to run rampant in the country laying waste to its immense potential? If Nigeria is not a country of lepers why are foreign investors taking their businesses elsewhere?
Mr. Oyedepos warning is not only misplaced and misdirected, it abandons the root of the problem and futilely lashes out at rotten leaves. The pastors problem should not be that Nigerians criticize their religious leaders many of whose garish indulgences make even the jaws of those in the showbiz industry drop. Mr. Oyedepo should concern himself with the leprosy afflicting the country, its constitution and institutions on a grand scale, and how men of God are aiding its spread by their words as well as their silence.
In embracing many of those who have pushed the country to the precipice, keeping their ears away from uncomfortable truths lest they take their patronage elsewhere, many men of God sell their pulpits for porridge.
All manner of pseudo-spiritual logic is advanced to justify the doublespeak easily interpreted as a sop to some of Nigerias most corrupt citizens precisely because it refuses to resoundingly rebuke the incorrigible who seek refuge in Gods house.
Those who minister in churches and mosques in the country must recognize that the time is long past to administer painkillers. What the country needs is the bitterest of pills and then surgery that will see the scalpel strike the tumor killing the country. To do this, the truth and nothing but the truth must resound everywhere from Rigasa to Rumiji; from the megaphone of every church and mosque from Akwanga to Alor and out of the mouth of every pastor and imam from Bajida to Bende.
In a country of leprosy, urgent treatment is needed. It is not for Mr. Oyedepo to threaten Nigerians critical of some of those responsible for their problems with leprosy.
It is for a lot of people to amend their ways and put their houses in order beginning from those religious leaders who tell Nigerian politicians that it is well while the house of Nigeria continues to burn.
With everything happening in Nigeria at the moment, it is hypocrisy to refuse to criticize or to instigate that refusal. In the future, Nigeria will remember all those who sat on the fence while it negotiated its toughest years.
Kene Obiezu,
keneobiezu@gmail.com
