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In this write up, I want to reflect on a point made by the Archbishop of Calabar, Most Rev Joseph Ekuwem to the effect that Nigerians like saying “God help us” when they themselves do nothing to help themselves. This was during the funeral of the Emeritus Archbishop of Calabar Joseph Edra Ukpo who died on the 1st of March and was buried on the 23rd of March 2023.
The funeral would have been sooner, but allowance had to be made for relatives who were overseas, to attend. The occasion was attended by twenty-four Bishops, including the president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria, Lucius Ugorji; the retired Archbishop of Abuja, John Cardinal Onaiyekan; former president of the CBCN and Archbishop of Abuja, Ignatius Kaigama and of course Bishop Kukah of Sokoto Diocese.
The beautiful ceremony including the internment was under two hours. It was for many people the first time of seeing a Bishop buried. The grave was on the right edge of the sanctuary, and so the interment was under the view of all the worshippers. The grave was immediately covered with a slab. Traditionally Bishops are buried in their cathedrals. Some have a crypt in the basement of their cathedrals with capacity for several bodies. As the church in Nigeria grows mature, there is envisaged a gradual turnover of Bishops, therefore many cathedrals will have to prepare adequately for the burial of Bishops who become late.
At the end of the interment, Joseph Ekuwem the Archbishop of Calabar mounted the rostrum and challenged Nigerians to wake up from a mindset of depending on God without corresponding responsibility. According to him, “Nigerians like saying, ‘God help us,’ and they do nothing else to help themselves but wait on God to help them.” Let us briefly interrogate this assertion.
In the aftermath of the presidential elections, at least two young people were bold enough to tell me that they would stop praying, because prayer was a useless endeavour. They pointed out to me that they did all they could; they got their permanent voter cards (PVC), they queued to vote, they even waited for the results to be announced only for INEC to do abracadabra; that all their prayer and effort became useless, and does it mean that God could not stamp his foot and neutralize the plans of the wicked?
I have sometimes wondered myself, the place of God in such human affairs like football, the lottery, elections. Take the case of the world cup. I imagine that citizens of many countries would be praying for their countries to win the trophy, and all of them would be praying to God! Which team should God favour? Or the case of the mega millions’ lottery in the UK or US or the Euro millions in Europe.
I imagine that some players would want to ask God for help to win the jackpot! If one million persons pray to win the jackpot who should God favour? It boils down to the fact that some things are purely in the realm of our choices as human beings. This does not mean that God is not present. But certain affairs have been delegated to be our responsibility and there are consequences for the choices we make.
Take the matter of competing for offices. In Nigeria, the supporters of a candidate, apart from campaigning seriously, would want to pray as well. Even the candidates may visit various places of worship. Now if supporters of all parties pray, who should God listen to? For instance, the 2023 presidential election may have been seen in some quarters as a competition between the power of Christianity and the power of Islam.
For certain Muslims, the failure of the Muslim/Muslim ticket would have been seen as defeat to the religion, and so everything possible was done to make it succeed. On the other hand Peter Obi was propagated in some quarters as the Christian candidate even when he has a Muslim as deputy!
Islamic ethics allow them to do anything if it promotes the religion, whereas Christians are bound by an ethic that condemns foul play in any form. This is not to say that a person who is a Christian cannot commit foul play, after all stories abound even in the recent elections. But no Christian does so as an advancement of the faith because it would be a contradiction in terms. It would be a sin.
A lie in Christianity is a lie whether told to a non-believer or a believer. But in Islam, there is taqiyya which ordinarily permits a Muslim to temporarily deny his faith if he is facing persecution. By extension it enables a Muslim to do something sinful for a pious outcome, a kind of situation ethics where the end justifies the means.
If ‘adjusting’ the results of an election might help a Muslim to emerge as governor, as in Nasarawa State where women are currently protesting naked, and knowing that a Muslim governor will promote Islam, then it would be conscientiously done as a religious duty. A Christian who rigs an election commits a sin and he answers for it before God.
This pragmatism in Islamic ethics gives Muslims the upper hand in many temporal affairs in Nigeria because the Christian sense of justice is applicable no matter who is injured. A Christian is not allowed to discriminate against anyone no matter their faith, but a Muslim would presumably favour a member of the Umma against others and see nothing wrong with it.
Even for charity, Christian charity organizations would target people in need no matter the creed but most Muslim charities target only Muslims. The unfavourable experiences of indigenous Christians in the core north can testify to these things.
As to God intervening in human affairs, God certainly does, but not in the way of interference. God is the Lord of history and ultimately everything is directed towards God’s purposes. Apart from angels, humankind is the only specie gifted with consciousness which entails intelligence and a free will. God does not clog our will.
We either use our intellect and will for good or for selfish purposes. We had a legislature that struggled after many years to come up with an electoral act that was canvassed as technology driven. Everyone believed that INEC would keep to its set standards. Did anyone expect God to come and force INEC to keep to its rules? And did anyone expect God to come and force people to accept the result?
Our leaders know that we like outsourcing to God what we can do by ourselves, so they take advantage and use their intelligence and will for their selfish ends while we use our intelligence and will to find ways to cope and move on.
The good news is that the last time I checked, God is still God and has ways of fulfilling his purposes even when he doesn’t have to force us. God is not mocked! The best way is to always act as if all success depends entirely on us, and to believe that all success depends on God. It is not to do a little and leave the rest to God but to do everything and yet leave everything to God.
This is where the man of faith differs. The man of faith works as hard as the unbeliever but knows and believes that he wouldn’t achieve success without God, because even the very strength comes from God. Let us stop blaming God and blame ourselves for shirking the responsibilities God has delegated to us.