By John Egbokhan

Nigerian is a country where religion thrives at an unbelievable rate. We are quite religious and tend to tie our respective faiths, Christianity, Islamism and traditionalists to how we do things.

We fast, pray, read the bible and generally profess God more than our actions tend to depict. Our last President, Goodluck Jonathan was a believer while most of the serving past governors in the predominantly southern region are self-professed born-again Christians, yet continue to loot the treasury dry with wanton brazenness, leaving the deprived masses running to God in search of spiritual attention, rather than confront headlong the demons represented in their leaders, who is properly challenged, can be eased out at the 2019 general elections.

Here in Germany, where I have spent the last six days, I have tried to find a church to worship but in the three cities (Frankfurt, Munich, Mainz) that I have visited, courtesy of StarTimes and Bundesliga International, I am yet to sight a church, like I do in Lagos, where every street corner is sandwiched by worship centers.

Don’t get me wrong, not that they are not here, but they don’t command the same importance that they do in Nigeria, where what the pastors say is yes and amen, but over here in Germany, religion is kept at the back burner while proper leadership takes the driving seat, powering the country to greater heights. When asked how frequent he went to church, Henning Brinkmann of Bundesliga International, who quite rightly believes in God, said that probably during the big Christian festivals like Christmas and Easter, noting that Germans put God first in everything they do, which informs their strict abidance to God’s tenets of loving your neighbor as yourself and creating an enabling and prosperous society for all societies to thrive in.

I just wonder if our leaders, can take a cue from this and provide proper leadership and stop this religious hypocrisy that has so far taken us backwards into the medieval ages, where we fast and pray, bind and cast out demons and pour holy water and anointing oil on hapless and helpless citizens encumbered by financial, physical, material and societal problems. Amen.