By Akintan Nkechor Oluwatosin

Even if it’s true that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, I’m having a hard time figuring how beautiful we really are when the whole world is watching. Call me naive but I actually think Nigeria’s problem is religion.

You know, everybody say work and pray but only few people really know what that phrase means and put it into practice. Time, they say, is an important element, yet we have an attitude of waiting for God instead of working for ourselves. Now I’ve stated four premises.

1. Religion is Nigeria’s problem.
2. Work before praying.
3. Time is an important element in life.
4. The right attitude.

Now, I’m not an atheist, so before you crucify me for blaspheming, I urge you to hear me out for it’s upon these premises, I build my argument.

The whole issue of religion is like a pillar, something to hold even if it’s slippery. Many Nigerian don’t particularly understands how God works. I mean, you would agree with me that it’s actually easy to go to the church and sleep on the alter instead of picking a hoe and digging the ground so you can plant your daily bread. Trust me, I wouldn’t be writing this article if sleeping on the alter provides a means to survive.

Okay, let’s take for instance, all of a sudden, there’s nothing spiritual about the world, we are just living, fending for ourselves without any spiritual help, you would see how creative we would get. But wait, maybe I’m taking a giant leap with the whole absence of God, a typical example would be a graduate whom parent have managed to put through the lengthy and expensive process of learning.Alone after graduation, it’s only right you go and fend for yourself.

No longer enjoying the privilege of round table breakfast or light dinner, you are your own and you have to fend for yourself or run back home tails in-between your legs. A serious person would get serious with his life and strive. It’s not because you are lucky or smart but simply because you’ve realize you have no one to save you, it’s either you or you.

With a few 5a.m alarms and perspiration as a result of the squashing sun, you would realize how easy it is to make headway for yourself. Again, I repeat, it’s not because you’re lucky but because you have no choice, the pillar is gone and you are standing alone.

You would suddenly realize you could stand straight when you are not relying on your parents. So is life, the very moment we start acting like God isn’t going to help us, we would start helping ourselves.Accourding to Shan Yo, “Live with a man 40 years, share his house, his meals, speak on every subject. Then tie him up and hold him over the volcano’s edge, and on that day, you will finally meet the man.”

We would never know what we are capable of until we feel like we are at the edge of a volcano and nobody is coming to save us, not even God.

Another issue would be work and pray which can be better analyzed from the perspective of time.It’s clearly stated, even in the bible, work before praying. So the issue of me waking up as early as 6 in the morning to prepare for work so I can meet the 8 am meeting and on getting to work (2 minutes late) I’m unable to get in because they are praying.

Okay, what the hell!You could pray before a meeting, I mean, it’s Nigeria, everybody prays before everything. So I’m waiting outside and the 2 minute turns to 15 and before you know it, 30 minutes has gone and all the chronic late comers are outside with me because it’s 9 am already and the prayer has refused to stop simply because it’s the 1st of September (“mber month”).

I mean, it’s downright disgusting. Precious time that can be used for the enlargement of our pocket are now being used to pray like God is going to come down. History isn’t our strongest point but there’s an adage that translate into the saying that a man who doesn’t know where he is coming from wouldn’t know where he is going to.

We all accepted the foreign religion, no questions asked, yet only very few of us know the “atrocities” associated with these religions. The 30 years’ war in Europe, the series of Jihadist war all around the world, the Dark Age period in Europe which triggered several radical changes. People had to take things into their hands. The French revolution, the renaissance period (when people started creating things), industrial revolution (the age of machines).

Prayer became a backup, like when you work hard to design a project and after presenting it to the board of directors, you are outside waiting to know if they would go with your design or not, then you can say “Oh Lord, please help me” then it is out of your hands and asking God to help you at that time wouldn’t hurt, so why not?. But in a situation where you spend half of your time in church praying instead of working, then there’s a serious problem.

At the end, it all boils down to attitude, the right attitude attracts the right solution. Your attitude towards things, how passionate and hardworking you are towards a particular endeavor would determine your harvest at the end of the season.

But as I stated at the beginning of these article, maybe I am naive, but a very good question to ask yourself would be, “why do the men occupying the front roll in your church, come to church only on Sundays but are richer than you and are accrued all the honors by your pastor, WHY? And if the first thing that poops into your head is”blood money” or “juju,” I say this with no disrespect, but this article isn’t for you.

Oluwatosin is available on Twitter: @livedxpress