Hardship: Nigeria needs action, not prayers

A week ago, news emerged that First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu and National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu will lead national prayers in response to Nigeria’s challenges. The event, organised in collaboration with Christian and Muslim leaders, aims to seek divine intervention in Nigeria’s economic crises, according to Segun Afolorunikan, the Director-General of the National Prayer Forum.

Details of the exercise indicate that Muslims will gather at the National Mosque in Abuja for seven days, during which 313 individuals will recite Koran verses. Christians will meet at the National Ecumenical Centre for a week of intense prayers, with prayer warriors from various denominations focusing their efforts on the country’s adversities.

All this makes a mockery of democracy, Nigeria’s political system. Even in theocracies, empiricism is elevated above prayers.

After a week, the First Lady distanced herself from the summit. Religion is a private affair; she should allow it to remain so.

Nigeria’s woes are indeed daunting. Citizens are confronted with soaring energy prices, runaway inflation, a collapsed national currency, pervasive hunger and insecurity, woeful education, and health infrastructure. A rapacious political elite compounds the national malaise.

However, countries that have succeeded took concrete and deliberate actions, did the right things, and put the right people in the right positions. The basic principle of government is that good policies produce good results. Prayer is not a strategy for economic development and collective prosperity.

Christianity and Islam emphasise the importance of working, not just praying. If prayers were the answer, Nigeria would be a paradise given the teeming number of overtly religious citizens and the thousands of mosques and churches that dot communities in the country.

Ribadu’s acceptance of a leading role in this exercise is ridiculous. The NSA should be busy finding better ways to coordinate the Armed Forces and intelligence services to defeat insecurity. Are the prayer warriors going to be paid by the NSA’s office? Ribadu should not make Nigeria a laughingstock in global intelligence and security circles.

Nigerian leaders and citizens know prayers do not solve hunger or provide power, roads, or railways. Prayers cannot create an efficient public service, police force or other essential services. A good society comes from implementing scientific methods and punishment for bad behaviour.

Nigerians spend humongous resources yearly on pilgrimages to Israel and Saudi Arabia. Instructively, the huge technology, agriculture, health, and weapons industries in Israel are a function of investment in education and scientific research, not prayers.

The Saudis and other Gulf states built glittering cities with world-class infrastructure and services in the desert (which Nigeria’s elite love to inhabit) through visionary policies and proper management of their oil wealth. Iran is a strict Islamic state, but it sells weapons to Russia because it invested in education and science.

For Nigeria to progress, the government and citizens must take responsibility for decisions and actions. Prayers are to support human endeavours apart from the spiritual and psychological benefits.

It behoves the country’s leaders to take the right steps to confront the current challenges and the consequences of failed policies.

The government has neglected the power grid resulting in disruptive blackouts. It has implemented policies that have seen petrol prices and electricity tariffs spiral and failed to respond coherently to the security challenge. Prayers cannot solve that. This is another distraction meant to shift responsibility for poor decisions being made.

Religious leaders can do better in attempting to help retrieve Nigerians from the moral abyss into which they have descended by speaking out.

Ultimately, there should be a clear separation from the state and religion. This is the best route to success.