IT is an august season all over the world as the two major religions of Christianity and Islam are in the special season of physical and spiritual exercise of observing fasting. At least, to the orthodoxy in Christianity, forty days are regarded sacred when all adherents are expected to fast in accordance with the teachings of Christ. The same applies to the thirty days of Ramadan when all Islamic faithful restrain from eating, drinking and other activities towards spiritual upliftment.
The souls are constantly engaging with their Maker towards seeking forgiveness for sins and getting closer to God. While the culture of observing Lent is based on the travails of Jesus Christ during his persecution and stay in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights, Christians have institutionalized it to celebrate it as an opportunity to be closer to God and partake in the unusual denial of the body as done by Jesus Christ and the benefits of which include delivery of the adherents from suffering and eternal death.
To the Muslims, on the other hand, fasting in the month of Ramadan is a Quranic decree that constitutes the fourth pillar of Islam. It is dated back to circa 622 AD when it was said to have been first observed. It is a month of spiritual purification and devotion which culminates on the night of Laylatul Qadr which occurs in the last ten days of the month when all sins are forgiven and prayers most answered. Nigeria is an exceedingly religious country as it is doubtful if there is any country in the world where the importance of the two seasons of Lent and Ramadan are most honoured, although cannot so much be said to be Godly. They are seasons when you see most orthodox Christians and Islamic adherents observing the details of their religious prescriptions with fastidious dedication. Interestingly the two are occurring together at the same time which make the two religions’ adherents to be in the same shoes.
However, as religious as Nigeria pretends to be, it is utterly lacking in Godliness as remarked above. This is more so when you look at the aspect of governance where our leaders pretend to be God disregarding all concepts, precepts and principles of good governance to the detriment of the suffering masses. It is in these seasons that you would see leaders, after embezzling moneys that were appropriated to provide good education, housing, healthcare, employment opportunities for the masses, engaging in empty and satanic acts of philanthropy, donating food to the hungry masses whose plight they actually engineered. It is in these seasons that you see our leaders donating handsome amounts to churches and mosques for hungry masses to go and worship, believing in hopes that have been destroyed and looking unto God for a tomorrow that their leaders have wasted. Whereas there is no act of piety or worship acceptable unto God after one has destroyed the lives of others, our leaders have failed to learn from the Bible and the Quran that they claim to believe in and which they have mastered beyond mastery itself.
When they render quotes from the Quran and the Bible, you will be an unbeliever to think that they were not the authors of the sacred books. Just as the colonial masters designed a slave Bible to achieve and continue dominating the consciousness of the black slaves who are to read only prescriptions of absolute obedience to their masters and must not see rebellious provisions inspiring freedom by which they persuaded their own people to independence, the same way our leaders, in conspiracy with God-forsaken clerics have perfected the sermons of prayers and love for our leaders even if they are unfair to us.
While these seasons are meant to look inward and ingurgitating cleanliness and do good unto other, the less privileged most especially, our leaders have not learnt anything genuinely virtuous but selfishness, greed and wanton debauchery. For God’s sake, what does a man need million or billions of dollars for that he must steal from the public purse to acquire? On what basis or business investment would someone justify such acquisition? Yet, mere election or appointment into a political office has become an open sesame to riches beyond human imagination.
These fasting elements who have destroyed the lives of millions of people have forgotten that God does not need their boisterous philanthropy, self-inflicting hunger which their fasting only translates to and pretentious visitation to Mecca and Medina for Umrah during the month of Ramadan or visitation to Jerusalem to see the birthplace of Jesus Christ. They are in Saudi right now in millions whereas the funds they are using to engage in this act of pretence is stolen wealth from the masses. They often forget that it is Qur’anic prescription that such acts of worship will never be accepted from them.
The evils that these men and women have perpetrated have no equal and it baffles the mind to see how they think God is so stupid as to accept their senseless acts of pretentious worship in the name of being the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Right now, they are busy stealing from the public purse while purporting to be observing Lent and Ramadan. They are perfecting their acts of wickedness and evil notwithstanding that they are restraining from eating and fasting. The Nigerian budget for 2025 is out and those budget padders are in Saudi praying to Allah to make their stealing profitable.
Go to the Ministries now and you will see how much they have looted the country dry. Visit them in the National and States Houses of Assembly and you will see how madness have taken over. Those who sold to churches factories established by leaders of the past and where young men and women were gainfully employed are the ones that are encouraging the victims of their devilry to have faith in God.
Right now, they are shortlisting those to be sent to Mecca; hungry souls to be sent to Mecca in a gargantuan structure of deceit so that they would forget the source of their misery. The same set of leaders are the ones who declare private establishments into worship centres where songs of praise must be recited every morning by their employees regardless of the faith of such employees. These are the private business owners who control the banks and have perfected stealing from the innocent depositors and have mastered how to ensure that they are never caught no matter how much the system tries. Right now, the politicians are thinking of nothing but how to grab power and continue being in power and relevance in 2027.
They are stealing from the public purse to ensure they have enough to buy votes from the poverty-stricken masses whose consciences have become mere items of trade. Leaders having nothing from the significance of Lent and Ramadan fasting. They have chosen to clothe their hearts with cellophane of evil that no water of rectitude or fear of God can penetrate and soften them. All is in a bid to own the world and contest chairmanship of hell with Lucifer. They do not only steal what belongs to the people, they also steal and divert what is meant for the masses. I heard of a case in which some State government officials received thousands of bags of rice from the Federal Government which were meant to be distributed to feed the masses in their State and midway, these government officials diverted the consignments and sold them off to merchants at a discounted rate.
They made money from the resources meant to feed the poor! They have forgotten that the lessons of fasting in Lent or Ramadan include being closer to God during and after the seasons and shunning all evil acts and deeds. After all the acquisition of this inordinate wealth, they leave it all to those who will not know what the fates of their parents are in the hereafter.
Before they even die, a single stroke of test or punishment by God may wipe off all the acquisitions and that is why many of them live in misery, selling off their properties to take care of ailments that defy cure. After playing God over the less privileged, God will now decide to prove to them that He is the only God that is worthy of worship and veneration. Human soul is filled with forgetfulness that he forgets that he is a mere speck of dust that will go back to dust. How I wish we could see what happens to wicked souls in the grave and in the hereafter. I am sure Nigerian leaders would have a change of heart were that to be the case. The most important lesson of Ramadan and Lent is to let the poor masses breathe, live and prosper.
The three are a cumulative requirement. A breathing man may be dying and hence mere breath is not enough to make a man. He might be alive without being worthy of human dignity. He must prosper for him not to be sub-human. He must live and not merely exist, as in the difference between having a house and a home. The leaders are responsible for qualitative life for the masses. That is what leaders in the United Arab Emirates have achieved for their people. The primary focus of their governance must be the enthronement of the happiness for the citizens. After all, even the Nigerian Constitution, provides that the primary purpose of governance is the security and welfare of the people. While we all are not going to be equally wealthy, none must be deprived of means of qualitative livelihood while a small percentage of humanity lives in satanic splendour. Whoever, as a leader, that is able to achieve this is the only one worthy of being called a Muslim or Christian. It is not enough to occupy offices and bear heavy titles without making desirable impact in the lives of the people; after all, monkeys do sit on the wheels without being able to drive. And dogs chase after cars that they cannot steer their wheels. Why then occupy offices if the purpose of being there is not compatible with your orientation? Let us realize that the purpose of being a Muslim or Christian is to live according to God’s dictates. E se aiye ‘re o, eyin ti aiye kan is a Yoruba exhortation to the privileged to do good deeds and lay good examples. Anyway, I wish our Christian brethren a happy Lent, I say unto the Muslims, Ramadan kareem.