Naija and Religion

"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people"- Karl Marx(1844). Trust naija to always pray where the situation demands action. 'Nigeria prays' is a pet project of former Head of State Yakubu Gowon.Two days ago he said with prayers Nigeria will not break up in 2015. The reason why people are saying naija will break up should be tackled and not simply resorting to prayers.The West do not pray much yet they have functioning societies. While our 'leaders' are milking the country dry he says we should pray. No wonder our churches and mosques are bursting at the seams with worshippers. The prayer points mostly are issues that could be solved with a little bit of action. Problems with the in-law,jobs,witches,sickness,etc. Sickness mostly caused by malaria in turn caused by mosquitoes caused by blocked drainages and bad environmental hygiene, lack of awareness etc. Virtually all problems in Naija can be solved by a purposeful political class. The prayer points of worshippers are MARKEDLY different from those of their counterpart in these developed climes. Here, religion is being used mainly to hide the hurt and the pains of reality.Religion is increasingly used as an expression of material realities and economic injustice used by leaders to give the downtrodden a feel good feeling. We are still operating at the basics of human development unfortunately. We have a large quantity of gas yet the populace still gathers firewood to cook. We are daily being exhorted to pray while the looters are daily smiling to their banks. Talk of religion being the opium of the people. The people are daily been brutalised by the police, uniformed officers, leaders in mufti etc and still we must pray. Advocates of praying say without prayers of Naija things would have been worse. But can things get any worse? Or how much worse can worse get?