The presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 general elections, Peter Obi, rubs many people the wrong way. In a country so used and so abused by a particular breed of politicians with their trademark exuberance, extravagance and excesses, Obi is a radical difference, one that rankles many, especially in the establishment.
While Nigeria runs an outrageously expensive government that is unsustainable, unsightly, and all about cutting corners, Obi's gospel which he lived painstakingly as the governor of Anambra has always been about cutting costs.
In a country where the emperor has no cloth, the former Anambra governor has hard yards to show for a lifetime of commitment to personal discipline, prudence, and philanthropy.
It is little wonder that he was the choice for many young Nigerians during the 2023 general election. Many of them saw in Obi a riotous departure from the suffocating kleptocracy that has kept Nigeria rooted in the mire of underdevelopment.
It was not to be, and the smokes and mirrors filling everywhere in the country is an aching testament to what could have been.
A couple of weeks ago, Peter Obi was on a podcast and among many things, he asked Nigerians to convert their excessive focus on night vigils to night shifts. Expectedly, Nigeria's army of religious churchgoers have been critical of him.
But in a country where an excessive emphasis on religion has not exactly translated to economic prosperity, it is time for a country which has some of the world's poorest people to have a rethink.
Rather than open the hearts and minds of Nigerians, religion has closed off many hearts and minds, tying off tongues and sentencing many to a life of perpetual slavery and manipulation by those who hold themselves out as mouthpieces of the almighty.
People's blind faith in a God they mostly pay lip service to has fostered a mentality of consumption without commensurate production that is so inimical to any society.
People's belief that God will provide (and He does provide for one who works hard) has made them complacent, lazy and complicit in the problems convulsing Nigeria. Many people who even venture into fraud today maintain that that is God's way of providing for them.
So, instead of keeping vigil at work and increasing their productivity, people prefer to congest churches and pray for miracles. Many of them who even have the opportunity to dip their hands into the public till gleefully do so and later take humongous tithes and offerings to church to salve their conscience.
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There are also many others who kill in the name of religion. These people also abuse children and women in the name of religion. Children who should be in school are begging for a living all in the name of religion, while women who should be contributing their quota to the development of the country are relegated to the shadows cast by veils which reinforce mental slavery and oppression.
Nigeria's transition from one administration to another has been as chaotic as they come, throwing many overboard to the sharks of poverty and insecurity.
More than ever, there is need for Nigerians to examine their priorities. It is not enough to be religious. If all these years religion has only succeeded in yielding a little more than a riot of rot, then there is need to question the storm.
To avoid these questions would be to dig deeper into a bottomless hole. Rather than vilifying those who summon the courage to ask difficult questions, Nigerians should concentrate on discarding what hasn't been working and seeking new ways to lift their country out of the doldrums.
