By Jett-Iyke Amaechi
I asked a friend that traveled abroad when he told me about the decline in his spiritual life.
“Or is it that they don’t allow you pray over there? Tell me.”
The abroad guy responded, “No, it is not so. You are allowed to pray here.
But when you get here you will realize that a lot of things that we perceive to be spiritual are not.
They are a product of failures, from government and ourselves.
You will meet a system and an ideology that will challenge your previous beliefs.
Imagine that here, you don’t pray to fill gas, own a house, a car, go to school or have your children attend one of the best schools.
But in Nigeria, sometimes you even pray to have your three square meal per day.”
“The thing tire me.” I replied.
Then he continued, “You don’t even pray to get a job.
There are agencies saddled with that responsibility and they do their best to get you a job in 2 months.
And once you get that job your life becomes a product of leverage, the one we acknowledge as grace in Nigeria.
But this grace doesn’t come from above, it comes from the government.
Your child can even go to university and graduate without paying a dime.
As the child begins to work, the government will gradually deducts his fees from his salary in a way that it won’t even affect the child.
Under such atmosphere, if it’s you, you will change and behave like me.
You won’t even suspect your uncles, you will know they have no hand in your failure or success.
I don’t suspect my uncle’s anymore. Infact, I even call them on phone now.
We are closer than before. Life is really a mystery.
A traveller is wiser than a gray-haired man.
But I will advise you, you know the government we have, do your best and come to this place.
You will thank God you did.”
At this instance, I was weak. ” So our government had made us to hate our uncles like this when we should have loved them.
Oh! As I have become an uncle now, tomorrow my nephews and nieces will hate me thinking that I’m responsible for their failures.
When I’m innocent. God forbid! Some of our uncles may be dying in silence of their innocency.
God will help them.
So, our government made us pray about every issue of life no matter how small and jump from one prayer house to another.
It shall not be well with them.” I concluded.
” I think you now understand,” We ended the call.
I was in deep thinking of what to do.
“Should we all leave this country and runaway? No, all of us aren’t meant to travel overseas.” I muttered those words.
But you that read to this point, what do you think?