Nigerians spurn prayers, as country’s challenges deepen

The recently aborted effort by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to organise prayers over food supply in the country demonstrates the nation’s predicament. Nigerians have been at  crossroads for a long time. They have not had it rosy with the political leadership. Having been disappointed by politicians, do they also have difficulty trusting God?

The theme of the three-day prayers was “Divine Intervention for Protection and National Development”. Unfortunately (some people would rather applaud), the prayers did not hold. Before the announcement of the cancellation, several voices had risen against the plan, which was not a surprise.

Prayer has almost become the last thing people talk about when it comes to business and economic matters. But let Nigerians be sincere: have we not suffered enough at the hands of politicians? Have they not failed sufficiently for us to seek divine intervention?

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Those who are opposed to prayers should recall what Nigerian stockbrokers did during the financial meltdown from 2008 to 2009. At the time, prayers became an integral part of the daily routine at the Exchange. The genesis of the prayer sessions cannot be better described than the version given by the Doyen of Stockbrokers at the time, the Reverend Cannon Olubisi Odejimi: “When things went bad, we turned to God,” he said in his address on the trading floor on June 30, 2009.

Although praying by the stockbrokers preceded the crisis, the crisis justified the action, according to one of their leaders.  “In a situation where you did not know what to do, you just had to rely on God. It dawned on everyone that that was the way to go, and the practice has continued till today,” he told this writer in an interview.

At the start of the trading day, they would say a prayer. At the close of the day’s trading, they would say another, before the bell is rung and the gong sounded signalling the end of the market. They alternated the prayers between Christians and Muslims: If one religion offered the opening prayer, the other said the closing version. It is the finance industry’s version of a national practice, where, at a federal government function, for instance, a Reverend or Bishop is called to pray, and a Muslim cleric completes the religious segment of the occasion, or vice versa.

Was the brokers’ decision just part of Nigerians’ religious nature, where we are said to love the outward display of worship? Or was there a genuine realisation that man, after all, needs God, despite all our pretences to the contrary when it comes to professional competence? The tone of the prayers also tended to sway with the mood of the market and the economy generally.

Accordingly, those who offered the prayers would choose their words carefully and appropriately in line with the dominant issues of the day.  On August 19, 2009 – five days after the CBN sacked the managing directors and executive directors of five banks and the day that it published names of major debtors to the five banks, the market dipped further, and at the end of trading, the market index fell by 2.6 per cent.

The person who prayed on that day showed the feeling of the stockbrokers towards the events. He asked God to intervene in the market because, according to him, “the intervention of government is not enough”.

On another occasion, Odemimi prayed and asked God to intervene in the market. He said the operators did not like the direction of the market and asked God for an “automatic” answer to the prayer. “Come and control the market yourself,” he prayed to the “Principalities of darkness want to cover this market, but they failed in the past,” he said. “They will not succeed now.”

He admonished the stockbrokers that it was not just enough to “come here and pray in Muslin or Christian language. The traders must put on the whole armour of God because “they are watching you”.

He continued this prayer on September 7, when the Director-General of the Stock Exchange led a team of the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers executives to close the market and make some announcements. “You told us that those who don’t want to work should not eat,” he prayed to God. “That is why we are here.” He asked God to give divine illumination to brokers so they, in turn, could give the right direction to the market.

Nigeria must pray. Prayer is not in conflict with anything that can be done to build an economy. It is not a replacement for sound policy making, nor does it replace planning. Prayer is not a replacement for hard work; everybody must know.

If we do not pray, things could get worse.