By Prof. Abel Idowu Olayinka, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, is an applied geophysicist.
Special to USAfrica magazine (print) and USAfricaonline.com (1st African-owned, U.S-based news network published on the internet)
After our prayers, God, being a wise God decided to reward us according to our labour.
Since those that went into industrialisation, technology, infra structural 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.
Shallow thought you say? Why is it that we fail to accept the truth even when it’s glaring to all. Are those other countries not backed by God? The fact remains we have not done enough or done anything at all to lift us from stagnation, and our present economic woes cannot be resolved by running to churches and mosques.Being spiritual has got nothing to do with development. We need to work .period!
iProf. Abel, you got it completely wrong. The technologist guru would live and die and would definitely resurrect. They would be questioned on what manual of life and liberty was to them as thy themselves manufactured various machine with manual to follow. Meaningless is any effort a created beiing without recognition of the Creator
prof, you absolutely got it wrong by linking Nigeria problems to spirituality. Since independence how many clergymen emerged to position of authorities in Nigeria. Religion: praise and worship, fasting and prayer etc are never the reasons for Nigeria failure or underdevelopment. But rather it’s purely base on the problem of our visionless and corrupt political leaders.
The selfishness and greed in Africa and the rest of the world is what is causing our downfall.
Our countries are corrupt and undeveloped because of human selfishness, even our churches are packed full sometimes for selfish reasons.
You can be the richest man in the world but still feel very empty, sad, depressed and unfulfilled because you lack the joy and peace that comes from God.
Our leaders have chosen to line their pockets with the country’s resources and paid even more greedy foreigners to exploit everything.
But do not use this reason to deter people from praising and worshiping God.
When it’s comes to your final day all the money in the bank and the comforts of this world will not take you to heaven. It’s a decision each individual has to make
Spiritual is not about going to churches, Churches are the main problem of Nigeria, deceiving the most naive and active Nigerian. I know I cant become Nigeria president, but if someone is listening to me, Someone like Oyedepo should go and preach gospel in Borno State, Adeboye should go Sokoto , TB Joshua should go Kano, Oritsejafor should go Taraba Mike should go Katsina,, then I know they are preaching gospel!
Gori, you’re absolutely wrong, you actually sounds like one of those fraudsters posing as men of God . Almost all great and successful men were never religious. Look carefully around you and you’ll realize that all these pastors and preachers are quacks and religious criminals .
Speaking in tongues, binding and casting Lucifer, etc is not the reason Nigeria is not the reason for under-development. Religion is not necessarily synonymous with poor vision or shallow leadership; neither is spirituality an obstruction to hard work. In fact sound spirituality is a bedrock for vision and ability. Most of the world’s most successful leaders have been very deeply spiritual people.
This is just another example of shallow thought from Africa’s leaders