The Nigerian god is one. It may have many
different manifestations, but it is essentially different sides of the same
coin. Sometimes, adherents of the different sides may fight and kill each
other. But Nigerians essentially follow the Nigerian god.
This article is for all those who want to become
better worshipers. If you are a new or prospective convert, God will bless you
for choosing the Nigerian god. This is just how you must worship him.
First, you must understand that being a worshiper has nothing to do with character, good works or righteousness. So
the fact that you choose to open every meeting with multiple prayers does not
mean that you intend to do what is right. The opening prayer is important.
Nothing can work without it. If you are gathered to discuss how to inflate
contracts, begin with an opening prayer or two. If you are gathered to discuss
how to rig elections, begin with a prayer. The Nigerian god appreciates
communication.
When you sneak away from your wife to call your
girlfriend in the bathroom, and she asks if you will come this weekend, you
must say—in addition to “Yes”—“By God’s grace” or “God willing”. It doesn’t
matter the language you use. Just add it. The Nigerian god likes to be
consulted before you do anything, including a trip to Obudu to see your lover.
When worshipping the Nigerian god, be loud. No,
the Nigerian god is not hard of hearing. It is just that he appreciates your
loud fervour, like he appreciates loud raucous music. The Nigerian god doesn’t
care if you have neighbours and neither should you. When you are worshipping in
your house, make sure the neighbours can’t sleep. Use loud speakers even if you
are only two in the building. Anyone who complains must be evil. God will judge
such a person.
This is how the Nigerian god judges people who
are your enemies- evil people who want to spoil your hustle; like your
colleagues who don’t want your promotion; like your single old aunties who secretly
don’t want you to marry that rich handsome man (who you haven’t met yet); like
all your neighbours who are stopping you from getting pregnant: He violently consumes
them by fire. He returns all their evil plans back to sender. So when making
requests about all your enemies, do not pray that they be forgiven or that they
change. Pray that the Nigerian god kills them off with such violent finality
that there is nothing left of them.
Attribute everything to the Nigerian god. So, if
you diverted funds from public projects and are able to afford that Phantom,
when people say you have a nice car, say, “Na God”. If someone asks what the
secret of all your wealth is, say, “God has been good to me”. By this you mean
the Nigerian god who gave you the uncommon wisdom to re-appropriate public
funds.
Consult the Nigerian god when you don’t feel like
working. The Nigerian god understands that we live in a harsh climate where it
is hard to do any real work. So, if you have no clue how to be in charge and
things start collapsing, ask people to pray to God and ask for his
intervention.
The Nigerian god loves elections and politics.
When you have bribed people to get the Party nomination, used thugs to steal
and stuff ballot boxes, intimidated people into either sitting at home or
voting for you, lied about everything from your assets to your age, and you
eventually, (through God’s grace), win the elections, you must begin by
declaring that your success is the wish of God and that the other candidate
should accept this will of God. It is not your fault whom the Nigerian god
chooses to reward with political success. How can mere mortals complain?
The Nigerian god does not tolerate disrespect. If
someone insults your religion, you must look for anyone like them and kill
them. Doesn’t matter what you use—sticks, machetes, grenade launchers, IED’s,
AK47’s.
The Nigerian god performs signs and wonders. He
does everything from cure HIV to High BP. And the Nigerian god is creative: he
can teach a person who was born blind the difference between blue and green
when the man of god asks, and he can teach a person born deaf instant English.
As a worshipper you must let him deliver you because every case of sickness is
caused by evil demons and not infections. Every case of barrenness is caused by
witches and has no scientific explanation. So instead of hospital, visit agents
of the Nigerian god. But the Nigerian god does not cure corruption. Do not
attempt to mock him.
If you worship the Nigerian god, you are under no
obligation to be nice or kind to people who are not worshippers. They deserve
no courtesy.
The Nigerian god is also online. As a worshipper,
you are not obliged to be good or decent on Facebook or twitter all week except
on Friday and Sunday, both of which the Nigerian god marks as holy. So you may
forward obscene photos, insult people, forward lewd jokes on all days except
the holy days. On those holy days, whichever applies to you, put up statuses
saying how much you are crazy about God.
These days, the Nigerian god also permits tweets
and Facebook updates like: "Now in Church" or "This guy in front
of me needs to stop dozing" when performing acts of worship.
In all, the Nigerian god is very kind and
accommodating. He gives glory and riches and private jets. And if you worship
him well, he will immensely bless your hustle.
Love it! Brilliantly written. :)
ReplyDeleteI most Nigerians need to read this.... Thanks
ReplyDeleteWhat a humourous right up. Lol...it speaks loads about the Nigerian people nd their character
ReplyDeleteLol....Without forgetting the permission to allow men of the nigerian god slap his members who claim to be witches/zealots for god
ReplyDeleteI know your stans will get me again but I have nothing but love for you!
ReplyDeleteI don't know what to call this; a sad satire or a deep dirge. I can almost see the bleeding heart of this writer. Poignant tears well in the eyes of the son of the still-born nation. Only cold dummies can 'lol' at this.
ReplyDeleteDeep dirge mate.....Nigeria is a failed state,I'm so pained that my chest tightens when I think of it.
DeleteOKaro
u and i had the same line of tuts. Nigerians and God???? u cnt take dat away from dem....even in the most ungodliest of situations they must find a way to sqeeuze in his name.
ReplyDeleteI think u are basically talking about d hypocrites and d fanatic.
ReplyDeleteVery practical.
ReplyDeleteApt. Very creative piece
ReplyDeleteRight on point, you have clearly captured and discribed an average Nigerian. May Almight God/Allah save us from deiceving ourselves because that's the worst thing we can't do to ourselves.May you increase in wisdom Elnathan John.
ReplyDeleteRight on point!pray all dese churches n pastors here n der read dis write up
ReplyDeleteHılarous! And also true! Loool!
ReplyDeleteThis is a fact, it speaks right of nigerians and their way of life.
ReplyDeleteShort of words brilliantli written
ReplyDeleteConcise and wonderfully written!
ReplyDeleteI wonder when we'll stop cloaking everything in religion and finally be real with ourselves!
As sad as it is,this is the truth about religion in our country now! Kudos to d writer
A nice piece, very intelligent/innovative delivery too. We have come to a point where we cannot say for sure what is our true character as a nation (some people even ask if we are still one nation) and it is so sad. It is time for us to make up our minds in order to recreate and guide our characters. It is not wrong to always call on God. But it is very wrong to say with your lips what your heart does not profess or believe in and that is why we are in this mess. Many of us are very religious but hardly spiritual.
ReplyDelete-- there is also d part of traveling abroad but staying silent. Then calling all your friends when you're already there so they don't jinx it-- Nigerian god. Nice piece.
ReplyDeleteBriliantly written! U hav just brought to light the lif of a typical Nigerian. May God deliver us from the furnace. Kudos to U! LOOOL!
ReplyDeleteSo true
ReplyDeleteFunny and enlightening....This Nigerian god sha...
ReplyDeleteI love this!!!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with this blog! The one that particularly annoys me is this 4kin churches keeping me up all night in the guise of night vigil. You will hear loud speaker and someone trying to sing a note which they don't have the talent for or the pastor who sounds like agbaero( transport levy collectors). What I have noticed is this happens in a impoverished areas like Ikotun where I stay! It was a mistake moving here, if its not the okadas blaring their horns all night its the religious imbeciles disturbing my peaceful nightcap. I went to one of these nuisance. Neighboring church and told the pastor , the True God said love thy neighbor as yourself and they should be considerate to the area and warn them if they don't I will report them to the council or get some area boys to destroy the church! Seriously I know most of you will be shock by the comment, I myself am a christian but I doubt if these people are praying to God or gods! So far the noise have lessened but it seems I might have to visit 10 other churches near my flat! To round up, nice blog and it depicts what the state of religion is in this country!
ReplyDeleteSMH
ReplyDeleteSay
ReplyDeleteWhat does your God do?
I know my God
Do you know yours?
Or are you just cynical
If you are, then the world
has succeeded in getting you
A relationship with God is personal.
I love this
ReplyDeleteAh! I needed this right now. This is necessary.
ReplyDeleteMr Elnathan, thanks for the blog, i appreciate you sharing ur knowledge about naija god with us. Keep it up nice one.
ReplyDeleteOh my (Nigerian) God!
ReplyDeleteFrom the late Christopher Hitchens:
ReplyDeleteMost important of all, perhaps, we infidels do not need any machinery of reinforcement. We are those who Blaise Pascal took into account when he wrote to the one who says, "I am so made that I cannot believe."
There is no need for us to gather every day, or every seven days, or on any high and auspicious day, to proclaim our rectitude or to grovel and wallow in our unworthiness. We atheists do not require any priests, or any hierarchy above them, to police our doctrine. Sacrifices and ceremonies are abhorrent to us, as are relics and the worship of any images or objects (even including objects in the form of one of man's most useful innovations: the bound book). To us no spot on earth is or could be "holier" than another: to the ostentatious absurdity of the pilgrimage, or the plain horror of killing civilians in the name of some sacred wall or cave or shrine or rock, we can counterpose a leisurely or urgent walk from one side of the library or the gallery to another, or to lunch with an agreeable friend, in pursuit of truth or beauty. Some of these excursions to the bookshelf or the lunch or the gallery will obviously, if they are serious, bring us into contact with belief and believers, from the great devotional painters and composers to the works of Augustine, Aquinas, Maimonides, and Newman. These mighty scholars may have written many evil things or many foolish things, and been laughably ignorant of the germ theory of disease or the place of the terrestrial globe in the solar system, let alone the universe, and this is the plain reason why there are no more of them today, and why there will be no more of them tomorrow. Religion spoke its last intelligible or noble or inspiring words a long time ago: either that or it mutated into an admirable but nebulous humanism, as did, say, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a brave Lutheran pastor hanged by the Nazis for his refusal to collude with them. We shall have no more prophets or sages from the ancient quarter, which is why the devotions of today are only the echoing repetitions of yesterday, sometimes ratcheted up to screaming point so as to ward off the terrible emptiness.
While some religious apology is magnificent in its limited way—one might cite Pascal—and some of it is dreary and absurd—here one cannot avoid naming C. S. Lewis—both styles have something in common, namely the appalling load of strain that they have to bear. How much effort it takes to affirm the incredible! The Aztecs had to tear open a human chest cavity every day just to make sure that the sun would rise. Monotheists are supposed to pester their deity more times than that, perhaps, lest he be deaf. How much vanity must be concealed—not too effectively at that—in order to pretend that one is the personal object of a divine plan? How much self-respect must be sacrificed in order that one may squirm continually in an awareness of one's own sin? How many needless assumptions must be made, and how much contortion is required, to receive every new insight of science and manipulate it so as to "fit" with the revealed words of ancient man-made deities? How many saints and miracles and councils and conclaves are required in order first to be able to establish a dogma and then—after infinite pain and loss and absurdity and cruelty—to be forced to rescind one of those dogmas? God did not create man in his own image. Evidently, it was the other way about, which is the painless explanation for the profusion of gods and religions, and the fratricide both between and among faiths, that we see all about us and that has so retarded the development of civilization.
More from Hitchens:
ReplyDeleteThe mildest criticism of religion is also the most radical and the most devastating one. Religion is man-made. Even the men who made it cannot agree on what their prophets or redeemers or gurus actually said or did. Still less can they hope to tell us the "meaning" of later discoveries and developments which were, when they began, either obstructed by their religions or denounced by them. And yet—the believers still claim to know! Not just to know, but to know everything. Not just to know that god exists, and that he created and supervised the whole enterprise, but also to know what "he" demands of us—from our diet to our observances to our sexual morality. In other words, in a vast and complicated discussion where we know more and more about less and less, yet can still hope for some enlightenment as we proceed, one faction—itself composed of mutually warring factions—has the sheer arrogance to tell us that we already have all the essential information we need. Such stupidity, combined with such pride, should be enough on its own to exclude "belief" from the debate. The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species. It may be a long farewell, but it has begun and, like all farewells, should not be protracted.