by Adefenwa Adeshina

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use” – Galileo Galilei

Nigeria could pass for the only country where the same things are done regularly but different results are expected each time.

A Nigerian prefers to vote based on his/her religious belief or ethnic background rather than vote a competent candidate of different religious/ethnic background. We have continually decided the fate of our nation on sentiment and selfish interests. To a Nigerian, as long as his/her interest will be protected he doesn’t care whether the country goes up in flames or gets destroyed by incompetent political office holders.

Over time, some of us voted people based on how much we were paid or on their names. As it is, in Nigeria, most of us prefer “Goodluck” (even when we’ve done nothing to deserve it) to working hard and earning based on effort put in. Which is why we were easily deceived during preparations for the 2011 general elections, when most of those who voted the ruling party voted for the name of the candidate and not the party.

The solution to the problems with Nigeria lies with us as Nigerians and the more we wait for God to help us solve our problems, the harder it will get. We all have felt the hardship in the land; we feel the pains of unfulfilled campaign promises, yet we’ve refused to think and act right. We prefer to cast all our burdens on God which has not solved any of our many problems.

God has given us the ability to think and reason, There is no better time to put it to good use than now. The solutions to our many problems lie in our ability to think about what we’ve done wrong for 14 years and start looking for ways to make them right; Selling our votes has not taken us anywhere, voting based on names has hurt us, voting according to ethnic/religious leanings hasn’t helped either and if we continue to hope on God to help us solve our problems while we continue doing the same things, just like we were deceived by a name associated with luck in 2011, another candidate will come forward and tell us his name is “Godsent” and since we’ve failed to address what we’ve been doing wrongly, we’ll vote for the name again.

God won’t come down to help us. He has placed in our midst those that can help us and he’s given us the ability to recognize them. It is left to us to trust them and support them. We also need to learn how to protect our votes and enlighten others on why we must stop voting on religious or ethnic sentiments, stop selling votes. God has not come down to liberate any nation on the planet, the citizens liberated themselves when they decided enough is enough. Nigerians also must stand up and let our voices be heard. Those in power need to know they are there because we want them to and that we’ve had enough of their oppression Egyptians aren’t waiting for God to help them; they know God has given them enough to liberate themselves. Why is Nigeria still waiting for God?

2015 is a couple of months away, it doesn’t hurt to start preparing now and act right.

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