Tunde Fagbenle: Prayers the country does not need

by Tunde Fagbenle

prayer Nigeria 1To make matters worse and also extend the time farther, the issue of “political correctness” or is it “religious correctness” has seeped into the system in a manner that is peculiarly Nigerian: opening and closing prayers by members of both Moslem and Christian religions, one after the other or alternating. Nothing could be more absurd, meaningless, and time wasting!

Alternative title to this piece was “How to pray.” But, today being a Sunday, and with enough religious preachment assailing readers in every newspaper, such a topic may throw off those not in need of further dose of preaching.

My ardent readers know by now I do not belong to any of the more nationally “popular faiths” – to be precise Islam and Christianity – in this our country that proclaims secularity in its constitution and is anything but that. I belong to the many others who are faithful in their faith but have to watch and often suffer the suffocating obscenity in parade and forced upon the country as the “elite” faith by the elite who are in truth the repository of all that is profane, odious and hideous.

Talking of “many others”, I’ve often wondered if in the battle for “supremacy of numbers” by those two contending religions, and in a country that does not know its own population other than by guess-estimates, if ever it occurs to anyone in the oppressing religions (not that it’s in their interest to know) that the actual numbers of the “many others” may not favour the contenders – deep down!

But that’s by the way. The degree by which Nigeria and Nigerians have elevated prayer as a preeminent item in the agenda at public functions borders on the absurd and is sadly directly proportional to the degree of insincerity and wanton disregard for time in the polity. I have been to public functions where opening and closing prayers took all of a quarter of the whole time meant for actual deliberations. It should therefore come as no surprise that Nigeria has remained the way it is – backward and unprogressive – despite the amount of time we expend on prayers.

To make matters worse and also extend the time farther, the issue of “political correctness” or is it “religious correctness” has seeped into the system in a manner that is peculiarly Nigerian: opening and closing prayers by members of both Moslem and Christian religions, one after the other or alternating. Nothing could be more absurd, meaningless, and time wasting!

And the absurdity of it is driven home, perhaps inadvertently, by no less an enigmatic person than the governor of my state, Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola. What did he do? Well, to “play fair” to those of “other faiths” Ogbeni went ahead to introduce the concept of “prayer trinity” whereby prayers are said in turns by someone of each of the three religions – the third being what is generically called “Traditional Faiths” – at openings and closings of all public functions! Nothing can be crazier, but the point is made.

It’s an issue that continued to detain me right up to a couple of months ago when I was invited by the convener, my friend Akintayo Akin-Deko, to the inaugural meeting of a new group, Egbe Majeobaje, which, as its name suggests, is a socio-political group of mature and elderly folks concerned with ensuring that “things don’t go bad” in the polity; and since it is a Yoruba group, I take it with the Yoruba nation in particular. After all, as the Yoruba saying goes: “agbakiwal’oja, k’oriomotitunwo,” translated: an elder would not be in the marketplace and observe a child’s head wrongly tilted (on its mother’s back) without helping to straighten it.

All was well with me until the meeting was to formally open and, you guessed right, an “Opening prayer” was called for. I immediately raised an objection. I have no stomach for it, not only is it time-wasting, it is purposeless and controversial. We would now have to ask for someone of one ‘faith” to open and someone of another to close, whilst leaving any others disregarded.

To my surprise, my objection was debated and upheld. It made me wonder how many people are out there in the country sharing my views but who quietly stomach the patently unneedful, just “for peace’ sake”!

An answer was then found to the imbroglio, and it is one that I recommend the country adopt henceforth:

“Let each person pray (or not pray) silently (no audible muttering please) to his or her self,and in the manner of his or her religion, for what the person wants of his God for the meeting.”

It was quick (a matter of one or two minutes), and it was not disagreeable; and it worked at the opening and closing of the meeting. K’oni-Jesupesinuara e, k’oni’Malepesinuara e, k’oni’Fapesinuara e, k’enitiko se kankannadakesinuara e. Lobatan! (The Christian, the Moslem, the Ifa, to all call unto the symbol of their faiths silently, as those of no faith were to be equally silent. That’s all!

In the Minutes of Meeting sent out subsequently, it had: “A minute was observed for each person to pray silently according to his faith.” I chuckled, and it made me proud of the group.

The country no longer needs the open and loud prayers by people whose sanctity or admissibility before God we cannot tell, praying for us all and ostensibly interceding on our behalf. No more of it. See where all those fake prayers have led us. There is no developed country of the world, known to me, that goes about wasting so much time in opening and closing prayers, in any function, public or private, and so loudly and fervently as does Nigeria. Clearly, God knows whose side to be on.

And that’s saying it the way it is!

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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.

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