“What’s God got to do with it? Everything, my brother.
Everything!”
“What’s God got to do with it? Absolutely nothing, my guy.
This is business!”
When the Western press says that Nigeria has a Muslim
North, and a Christian South, we vehemently protest it,
letting them know that the lines are not that clean-drawn
between the North and the South; and that we indeed have
huge populations in the North that are definitely Christian
and lots of Muslims in the Southern part as well. I even
volunteer the info that my own Dad, who lived all his life in
the supposedly (only) “Christian South” was himself a
Muslim for most of his youth. What we do not contest
though, is that Nigerians love to be either one or the other. It
is the rule that we belong to either of the two faiths. God
lives in Nigeria, you know. It is a very rare Nigerian indeed
that does not have God in his conversations on a daily
basis.
Our cars carry the bumper stickers, and our homes have the
necessary paraphernalia. Our politicians talk about God at
every opportunity. We are not the sort of people that believe
our God should be kept at home. By my side, by my side...I
have a very big God o.. He’s always by my side... We know
the song, don’t we?
And yet the presence, and at the same time, the
unbelievable absence of God in the life of the Nigerian is one
of the most impossible dichotomies you could ever
encounter anywhere in the world. I explain.
You are introduced to the Nigerian God as soon as you are
born, no matter what faith your parents profess. You have
not been properly named until a Pastor or Imam officiates at
the Christening.
Let us say that your Nigerian parents profess Christianity,
especially of the more insistent pente-rascal type (like me
and my “it-is-not-my-portion” brethren), they start planning
what name(s) to give you long before you are born. Why
not? They believe that “Goodness-and-Mercy Adegbite” is
so much more effective than just an ordinary “Soji
Adegbite”.
On the day of the christening, your Dad’s Uncle comes
around. Yes, that one that is an Ag. Director at the Ministry
of Rigmaroles. He comes bearing gifts. He comes in yet
another brand new Toyota Avensis. The Lord has been
good. In the midst of all the celebrations, and the joy, your
dad takes him aside, and they finalise plans on how to make
sure that the project that the government is about to
advertise for in the newspapers eventually comes to your
Dad. Of course, the usual stunts will be pulled. Full-page
newspaper advertisements, tenders, bill of quantity, opening
of bids, all the works. Everything will be done correctly. Due
process must be followed, you know. Not only does your
great-uncle know that your upwardly mobile dad will try his
(least) best, even though his proposal is not the best, your
dad will make sure that all the stakeholders are adequately
taken care of. The guy is not a ju-man. He knows the right
thing to do.
This being one of many such arran-gee contracts, life will be
comfortable for you and your siblings. Are goodness and
mercy not already following you from birth?
All around you as you grow up, nobody believes too much in
hard work, or the dignity of labour, or any such “arrant
nonsense”. God has done it is the phrase you grow up with.
God has done it, when your Dad’s Uncle, from his public
service salary buys a couple of houses in Dubai. (Yea,
right!).
God has done it when your other cousin gets the money to
“sort” (or in layman terms –bribe) his lecturers who now
unleash him into the society with a Second Class Upper
degree, an unemployable graduate from one of our run-
down ivory towers. But God has done it o, your uncle
(again!) was able to get him that job at XYZ bank. He’s now
building his “cabal”, that elusive funds-deposit target given
to our bankers in the notorious industry that begs the likes
of Jimoh Ibrahim to take a 35billion Naira loan he did not
ask for, but asks small scale entrepreneurs to go and bring
their great grandfather’s mother’s birth certificate before
they can get a much needed expansion loan. And for
thousands of female marketing staff, money for hand, back
for somewhere else has been the order of the day for some
years now. And when promotion comes, by hook and by
crook, (mostly by crook), it is still God has done it that we
say.
What is amazing about this Nigerian God that keeps doing it
is that it seems he does not lead these Nigerians to do other
things like lead lives of integrity and just simple honesty. Or
teach them to not lie on oath, or steal public funds.
It appears that He does not really need us to do anything,
except to pray when we should work, and pay when we
should not.
And don’t we pay our way out of everything?
I have had my driver’s license arranged before, as you have,
as well. True, I did a driving test in 1993 when I got the very
first one, but subsequently, all I needed to do was send my
passport photograph with a few thousands of naira through
Uduak, my mechanic. And in a few days, I get a new one. In
spite of what the law says in Nigeria. The system
encourages you to shine your eye!
Pastor Sam (Adeyemi, of Daystar Christian Center), one of
the few that keeps preaching national rebirth through
honourable living, told a rather sad story a few years ago. A
young Nigerian boy came out of his exam hall, and he
started screaming to his mum that had come to pick him up
after the O’levels, “Mummy, Mummy, that man has
swindled us o! He sold us the wrong leaked exams!” or
words to that effect. He was not aware that buying the exam
papers from anyone was crime enough. He was only
appalled that they had been sold the wrong one.
Unfortunately, that line of thinking is pervasive today. The
younger generation has been told (through our behaviours
and) recently by our president that “Most of these cases
they call corruption are just people stealing!” as if they were
not one and the same. As if each was not an offense that is
worth being thrown in prison for. Oh, he actually said that
on his campaign trail.
We mostly do not see a link between our lack of integrity on
a national scale, and the gradual destruction of our society.
It is convenient that the Nigerian God makes an appearance
when we think about the things we need but He somehow
retreats to Israel or to Mecca when there are things He
needs, like truth, and integrity, and looking after the
vulnerable, and ensuring justice. If you ask Him, He would
rather that we lived right than shout right.
What we also miss is that the real God has made some laws
universal, such that even if we shout “God forbid!”, but we
steal our country blind, someone will die on the roads we
don’t maintain. Some mother will die during childbirth
because we are religious only in our speech, and hardly in
our character, leaving our hospitals as mere “consulting
clinics”.
We are definitely going to reap what we sow, in trailer loads.
It is not a curse o, but the good book says “Righteousness
exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people”. It is
not a curse o, but when we have bribe-able immigration
men, and a leaking treasury, should terrorists attempt to
come through our borders, nothing will stop them in their
tracks. “The Gods are not to blame!” is what Ola Rotimi
said, many years ago. It seems it is us that is doing us.
And this dishonesty is not peculiar to any section of the
country. I have been sold fake items to in Onitsha, and been
extorted from by Lagos’ LASTMA. I have faced extremely
dishonest policemen in Abuja, and my driver’s license was
“bought” in Port Harcourt.
Incidentally, the God they don’t call in Japan ensures that
their trains run on time, while ours take 22 hours between
Lagos and Ilorin, a journey of less than 300km.
The man in the mirror has to CHANGE o, my brother, my
sister. The man in the mirror needs to know that we cannot
continue this way. That he cannot call God’s name when it
is time to ask for votes but forget altogether when it’s time
to declare his assets. The man in the mirror needs know
that there is a strong link between hunger in the land, and
poverty in character of everyone who manages our funds.
Truth be told, the thief came from our midst. They are us.
We are them. We are Goodluck. We are Tinubu. We are
OBJ. We are IBB.
The Ganis, the Olikoyes, and the Tai Solarins are few and
very far between.
The man in the mirror needs to tell himself the home truth,
that when he’s asked what God’s got to do with it, he should
say (in words and in deed), “Everything!”.