WORKING AS MUCH AS PRAYING AGAINST BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION IN NIGERIA

Once upon a time the emphasis was on praying, so much that people used to think that just as the old saying, ‘To work is to pray,’ was true, its reversal, ‘To pray is to work,’ was as true. And so in the face of any given problem situation, they chose to do either believing that it suffices. Trust that praying was easier.

However, new insights has led us to the understanding that ‘work’ and ‘prayer’ are not to be adjudged identical but cooperative in the roles they play to securing a functional and meaningful livelihood for the one and the many. And so, today, it is more appropriate to advice that one works and prays. This is coming against the backdrop that while work, understood here in the corporeal sense, engages the physical, prayer on the other hand, understood here as communication with God, engages the spiritual, so as to get both hands on deck in getting things rolling for good.

For years now, praying against bribery and corruption in Nigeria has occupied a chunk of the prayer time in most Christian congregations. And the crux of the prayer is that the Almighty and merciful Father, the Ruler of all the nations of the earth, sheds the light of his face on our land ridding it of bribery and corruption in the process. That’s fine! But the big question is: Who are those that say this prayer, and how do they conduct their affairs from the dawn to dusk of Monday through Saturday before they return back to church on Sunday to chorus the prayers again and again?

Gathered in the congregation and actively participating in the prayer against bribery and corruption in Nigeria are:

1.      The priest who overtook someone by the wrong lane on Saturday evening and was pardoned by the road safety agents because he had his soutane on.

2.      The policeman/woman who insists on taking a bribe, and the church member who even initiated the bargain.

3.      The Christian women leader, and most others, who insist that their pregnant daughters must procure an abortion to save them (their parents) the well deserved label of irresponsible parents.

4.      The civil servant who goes to work by 11am instead of 8am, leaves for school run at 12noon, gets back on seat by 2pm and is homebound before it is 2.30pm, but expects a huge paycheck at the end of the month, and even continual pay rises.

5.      The Christian fathers and some other brethren who are the judges and lawyers that pervert the cause of justice, and are equally the politicians that fan the very embers of corruption by their participation in favoritism, nepotism, and the various scandals and misappropriations reported on the dailies on a daily basis.

And while we burden God with the guilt of our sins by our fervent prayer against bribery and corruption, we fail to make the slightest move to supporting his doing the job with even our little finger; we pray but never work – and expect all to be well. What a fat lie!

However, in the spirit of praying and working, a single demand is, therefore, made on each and every member of the various congregations concerned about having God do something about Nigeria’s bribery and corruption quagmire. The demand is this: Do something. And you don’t need to do too much to have done enough. It is as simple as:

1.      Resolutely pay your bills, at the right time and to the rightful authorities.

2.      Do your job and do it well, motivated by your just pay and customer care.

3.      Contribute your quota in cash, kind and time to ensuring a just order, like maintaining queues at the road traffic and while accessing services.

4.      Know your rights and demand them as much as keep to the demands of your duties.

5.      You’ve broken a law or compromised an order, why resist an arrest or beg to settle to it ‘the other way.’ Etc.

In these little ways, we can then be rest assured that while heaven is processing our supplications, earth is waiting in joyful hope with her cooperative effort. And so, while we pray as if it were all God’s business, we ought also to work as if it depends on the wit of our minds and the sweat of our brow. Or perhaps, the Greek legendary writer, Homer, was right when he submitted in The Odyssey that the gods are not in the habit of doing for man what man must do for himself.