Abdullahi Aborode: Do we need religion

by Abdullahi Aborode

The proper religion doctrines are abandoned and the so called “men of God” are looked upon for salvation.

A lot has been said concerning this topic in the last few years, and I deem it fit to air my views on it too. Kindly come along with me with an open mind, do well to free your mind from your mind set and embrace objectivity.

Religion as explained by Wikipedia is a collection of belief systems, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to SPIRITUALITY and, sometimes, to MORAL VALUES. Therefore, it is safe to say Religion is directly proportional to one’s character.

I will be focusing this write up to suit Nigerians and some other African countries that face similar unfortunate conditions. Nigeria is the most populous black nation as we all know and she is blessed by a whole lot of idiots ruled by fools in all arms of government. The Nigerian arm of government is not divided into three as the Presidential style of government is, our arms of government are; Executive, Legislative, Judiciary and House of Worship (i.e. Church & Mosque). No disrespect to traditional worshippers but they own a very negligible percentage of Nigerian worshippers, so I will channel my force to the Mosques and Churches.

The House of worship in Nigeria wields a whole lot of power; in fact Nigerians believe the house of worship will put a final end to all their turmoil that the initial three arms of government has caused them. This house of worship is governed by “men of God”, they are the General Overseers and shepherds of this oppressed Nigerian flocks, Nigerians have submitted their lives to them and they believe by worshipping through them or by getting anointed by them all their problems are over. The proper religion doctrines are abandoned and the so called “men of God” are looked upon for salvation.

Looking at the definition of religion, a country with a high number of religious people like Nigeria should be the best among nations in terms of welfare index, anti-corruption, low crime rate, human development etc. because of the high moral value that is preached in religions. According to the CIA Fact-book on Nigeria it is estimated that Muslims are 50%, Christians 40% and Indigenous beliefs 10%; analysing this statistics it means we have 90% ‘religious’ people (i.e. if I am also to believe that traditional worshippers are ‘bad’).

So why is Nigeria backward despite the fact that 90% of the population are ‘religious’? The answer is simple; we have 80% Mosque and Church attendants/goers and 10% righteous/religious citizens. Now let us look at the reason for this ratio of righteousness to ‘goers’. Majority of the ‘goers’ have been brainwashed by the leaders of their worship houses, they have been made to belief that they have enemies (most of which are imaginary), they have been made to believe that there will be no way forward for them if they don’t sacrifice and give something to ‘God’, they have been made to believe that they can do NOTHING to stop the evils perpetuated by the other arms of government order than to fast and pray. They have made us slaves of iniquity and cowards on our own fatherland.

When we take a good look at other arms of government, we see religious names like; David, Jonathan, Umar, Farouk…amongst others, this is a clear sign that they also belong to the Muslim or Christian category of ‘believers’. They also attend same churches and mosques that we attend, they sit on high tables in religious events, they sit right next to the Imams and Pastors, they are praised and celebrated for jeopardising the future of young Nigerians by the “men of God” that we have submitted to, they are good friends with our ‘messiahs’ and one will expect this influence to be tapped and then become the source of positive change in their hearts in order to better our lives.

Unfortunately, rather than fight for us, these ‘men of God’ join hands to milk us dry, they tax us, use us, enslave us and brainwash us to live comfortable lives at the expense of our continuous iniquity. The house of worships have suddenly become an avenue of income to the men of God, the house of worships are now WARSHIPS that wage war on the poor tactically and still expect same poor men to give from the little or what they don’t have. I will not want to bore you with the kind of expensive lives these men live as we all know them, the purpose of this write up is to make us think and find solutions to our problems.

Do we need Religion to prosper? I mean do we really need to worship men of God to prosper (as it is in Nigeria)? The answer is simple; we need to understand our religion, we need to have adequate knowledge on our religion, we need to snap out of our suffering and smiling approach, we need to differentiate between God and men of God, and we need to ascertain who grants our prayers, we need to think and act as our religious books permit us and not as the men of God permit us, we need to know that God doesn’t require us to give before he gives to us, we need to know that LOVE is what builds a righteous fellow, the LOVE of God made you believe and have faith in him, so LOVE is an essential part of religion, we need to LOVE our neighbours as ourselves and make life easier for each other, when there’s LOVE our conscience will be respected and we will do what is right(what is right include obeying traffic laws, it includes denouncing ‘egunje’, it includes being hardworking and being a law abiding citizen), when we LOVE one another; we will be able to stand for one another, we will be able to stand on our feet without the help of ‘god of men’ against oppression from all the four arms of government. I believe when there’s LOVE, there will be normalcy, unity, peace, and justice in the heart of the nation.

God is most forgiving and most merciful, he doesn’t need our money to enrich us, he blesses the works of those that are righteous, and he listens to you carefully irrespective of where you worship him, your heart should be your church and mosque, purify it with love and you will see good things walk into your home and our society.

LOVE; SAY IT, PREACH IT, SCREAM IT, SHOUT IT, EMBRACE IT AND PRACTICE IT then we will see a better nation!

GOD BLESS NIGERIA!!!

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Abdullahi Aborode tweets @aaaborode

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

Comments (5)

  1. well written thoughts. Hope and pray that whoever reads this will take a positve lesson from the post. Thanks for ur love.

  2. well written thoughts. Hope and pray that whoever reads this will take a positve lesson from the post. Thanks for your love.

  3. This write up says it all. My thoughts and belief exactly!

  4. Spot on Abdullahi, you are blessed and may God continue to enhance your knowledge.
    I said it once, when God had already given us the power and grace to move on, why are we still asking and repaeting the same request everyday as if God is deaf, LAZINESS AND LACK OF INDIVIDUAL WILLPOWER COUPLED WITH OVER DEPENDENT ON RELIGION LEADERS.

  5. Well religion is a borrow course.

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