We Didn’t Vote for Gods, Revisited: Tinubu Goes to Makkah

Aso Rock announced that President Tinubu will fly to Makkah for Umrah, pray for Nigeria's peace, unity, stability, and progress, commission military hardware at Abuja airport, and return next week.

Prayer, pilgrimage, and weaponry in one press release. Abuja had assembled the full complement of national menu. Only good governance was out of stock.

I called the Minister for Government Excuses, Chief Professor Engineer Alhaji Alabi Aashajeun, who has served every administration since Lugard with the loyalty of a national anthem. The multi-titled Minister changed parties faster than danfo drivers change lanes. No matter what party is in power, he stays, ever ready to explain why yesterday's disaster is exactly what Nigeria needs today.

"Chief Professor Minister, please can you hear me?" I shouted.

"Loud and clear," he said, through a noise like two goats quarreling in a zinc-roofed kitchen.

"Good. Is Nigeria still a country, or have we been reclassified as a prayer camp?"

"Leadership requires spirituality; the President is seeking divine guidance."

"Divine guidance for what? Did he campaign to govern Nigeria or to become Chief Supplicant? We elected a President, not a professional pilgrim."

"There is nothing wrong with prayer!"
"Who said there was? Nigerians have been on hold with heaven so long they deserve priority customer service. My question is why government keeps prescribing prayer for ailments that need hospitals, laboratories, electricity and a functioning police force."

I heard pages rustling. The Minister was apparently consulting his handbook: How to Defend the Indefensible Without Noticing the Indefensible.

"Mr. Akomolafe, you must respect the President's faith."

"I do. But respect should not be mistaken for silence. We should stop elevating personal faith for national policy. A Muslim President may perform Umrah. A Christian President may pray in Jerusalem. Nobody is stopping anybody from talking to God. But when Aso Rock turns a president’s private devotion into a national programme, citizens may ask: where are the targets? Where is the budget? Who resigns if nothing improves?"

"So, do you now suggest that the President should not seek Allah's guidance?"

"He should also seek the guidance already sitting in the Constitution, in evidence, in competent advisers, and in the wailing of the people. When your oga is arranging allowances for himself, family and cronies, does he fast for three days first? When the masses are told to endure, does the cabinet endure with them, or does it just share a photograph of the endurance?"

"You are being cynical, Mr. Akomolafe."
"No, Sir, it’s not cynicism. It is the Nigeria we live today. We earned it, with interest. Look at the evidence, Minister. This country has more churches than laboratories, more mosques than research institutes, more archbishops than agronomists. We have prayer mountains tall enough to be seen from space, and not one reliable transformer at the foot of any of them. A man can become a Bishop between breakfast and lunch. A functioning pathology lab takes a miracle."

"Faith moves mountains!"
"And what would be the purpose of moving mountains? Why do we not use faith to remove the potholes from the roads first? Minister, our priests will cast out a demon in four minutes but cannot cast out the spell over NEPA in over forty years. We rebuke poverty every Sunday, and poverty rebukes us back. It has our address and attends every service."

"The nation is blessed!"
"Blessed? That is rich, Minister. Your blessed Nigeria was crowned the poverty capital of the world just a few years ago. It is the only crown we fight to hold while the world rushes to give it away. Now, meanwhile, godless China..."

"Do not bring China into this."
"I will bring China into everything, because China brought 800 million people out of poverty. That is more than three times Nigeria's entire population, lifted out of misery in four decades. And those godless communists did it without a single all-night vigil. They didn't hold crusades against hunger. They built factories, railways, universities and power plants. We held a crusade against hunger and hunger won on points."

"They have no religion! They are lost!"
"Lost people who found electricity! Meanwhile, we found Jesus and Muhammad, glory be to both, and lost the electricity plus the capacity to feed ourselves. Hallelujah! Please, nobody is saying God is useless. I am saying God gave us brains, oil, land, rivers, and young people, and we respond by asking Him to do the work we were issued the equipment for. Heaven is not a subcontractor."

"But Mr. President also commissioned military equipment. Don’t you consider that a worthwhile action?"

"Yes, ribbon cutting at the airport, between Umrah and arrival, is, of course, praiseworthy—a beautifully choreographed action. The pilgrimage rhymes with the press release, and the helicopters match the agbada. But who is going to tell Mr. President that a holy city is not an anti-missile system? Who will tell him that Makkah will not patrol Zamfara and that our insecurity is not a spiritual wilderness. It is a failure of intelligence, training, equipment, and will, and no amount of 'Amen' fixes a failure of will."

"And the hospitals?"
"Ah, the hospitals. This is the best comedy in Africa. The leaders preside over cutting ribbons for hospitals they would not let their goat sleep in; they then fly abroad for a second opinion when they suffer from headaches. While Nigerians are told to leave everything to providence, the elite leave the country on first-class flights using their diplomatic passports. Providence for the poor, Harley Street for the powerful. Even our sickness is stratified!"

"Mr. Akomolafe, you are an angry man."
"Minister, I am a Nigerian paying attention - same thing. A woman in labor needs a midwife and a working theatre, not a minister's press release with excellent spiritual tone. Nobody has ever recovered from cancer because a Commissioner posted 'we stand with you in prayers.' Prayer comforts the hungry. It cannot serve as lunch."

"So what should the President do?"
"He should govern! The verb is not occult, Sir! Nigerian, make that African leaders, should build and fund hospitals and laboratories. They should build and repair schools. They should keep the lights on, secure our cities, towns, villages, and hamlets. African leaders should stop hiring cronies and court jesters; they should hire people who know what they are doing, not just people who know who he is. They should set and publish targets and explain results. Build institutions that keep working after the President has prayed, returned, traveled, and announced another prayer."

"You are asking for too much."
"I am asking for the minimum, Minister. In Nigeria, the minimum has become a luxury item."

There was a long silence. Then the line went dead. Perhaps providence disconnected him. Perhaps his battery surrendered. Or perhaps the Nigerian network performed its only national service, ending the call before Abuja could manufacture another excuse.

Let the President pray. Nobody begrudges him his faith. But Nigerians did not elect the Almighty as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Tinubu was.

Fellow Africans, the real interview is with you. Sit down, not at another vigil, but with your eyes open, and ask yourselves: how did we become so wayward, so shameless, that we cheer failure, normalize the abnormal, and attack the one person who asks why?

We generate our own electricity, drill our own boreholes, hire our own security, fly out for our own surgeries, and still thank the government for "efforts." A people who pay for everything and receive nothing, yet call it divine purpose, have not been blessed.

They have been conditioned.
We did not vote for gods. We voted for politicians who promised to govern. Let them govern, and let us stop applauding them for asking heaven to do their work.

©️ Ọ̀dọ̀fin Fẹ́mi Akọ́mọláfẹ́ (1st Dan, Ọ̀dọ̀fin I of Kasoa)

Blog: https://femiakogun.substack.com