It seems almost illogical for most Nigerians to not go on their knees and pray to God for success in any venture they embark on. Those in leadership positions from the presidency down to state governors and council chairmen invoke the Almighty to solve this or that problem – be it economic, socio-political or insecurity. Some senior civil servants are in the habit of starting morning devotions in their ministries before commencement of work. Privately-owned companies including banks and trendy supermarket chains follow suit, gathering employees in prayer sessions before opening for business. Shop owners in markets across the country are not left out of the prayer mania. Now something of a national pastime, THEWILL wonders whether prayers alone determine success in businesses (big and small) efficiency in government. Michael JImoh reports…
Mama Messi is a sprightly woman of 39, with a son named after the world-renowned soccer star from Argentina. But at Ope-Ilu near Egbado area in Ogun state, people around know her for her unusually named two-year-old kid with wide-awake intelligence as well as the beer parlour she owns smack down on a tee-junction.
After dropping off her son at a nearby crèche, Mama Messi repairs to her shop, goes into the inner room where two freezers are humming. There are bottles of different alcoholic beverages stacked on shelves. Thus surrounded by electronic appliances and drinks, Mama Messi covers her head with a white handkerchief, raises her palm in a supplicatory gesture and then mutters some prayer points. Done, she turns to a waiting customer: “Oya, wetin you wan buy?”
At a popular supermarket outlet on Egbado Road at Alakuko on a Saturday morning late last month, shoppers come in trickles but the yellow-painted big store is bursting with dozens of workers inside. Only two of the staff are attending to a few customers at the till. The rest, as it were, are engaged differently. Complete with drummers, the young men and women are whirling around like dervishes, singing lustily and throwing their hands here and there.
Is there a birthday party for one of them? No! As the newspaper found out, this is a morning ritual when those on duty come together and hold a praise and worship session for ten minutes or so. After that, they return to their various duty posts and work begins proper.
Along Lagos Abeokuta Road at Iron Market in Iyana Ipaja, the same ritual in the supermarket chain is taking place in front of some of the shops. Around are iron rods, flat metal sheets and giant iron meshes – some propped on fences, some stacked on benches. On this Thursday morning however, it is not the rims and rims of iron bars that commands attention. It is the group of men and women forming a semi-circle in front of some of the shops, holding hands like an unbreakable human chain.
Right in the centre facing them is a preacher man sermonising from a wooden lectern. Earlier, there had been 15 minutes of praise and worship, complete with an ensemble of drummers, lead singers and back-up, keyboardist, accordionist.
It was no different from the kind of spectacle you see on Sunday mornings in churches except there are no pews. Someone in the know say there is offering time however, given to the sermonizing preacher for his pains. The ever obliging man of God goes the round from one shop to the other, casting and binding demonic forces obstructing their businesses, praying for that alert to come now, now IJN. The ecstatic gathering almost always respond with a loud Amen.
“This is what we do every Thursday morning once we finish cleaning our surroundings,” Obinna told THEWILL. Far from its cherished motto as “The Centre of Excellence” on account of the mounds and mounds of rubbish all around, Lagos State Government long ago put aside every Thursday as an environmental cleaning day. For three hours from 7am, residents and office workers and neighbourhoods bring out their brooms, machetes, shovels, hoes and rakes, cleaning pans and packers, then make over their immediate environments, weeding, sweeping and clearing fetid gutters – until the next Thursday.
Obinna has been an apprentice for three years and he confirmed that for his years of apprenticeship, they have never missed a week of diligent sweeping and cleaning then praying before they open for business.
So, what is the essence of the prayer and worship sessions at the Iron Market, Mama Messi’s silent invocation every morning? The answer is not hard to guess at. For their businesses to prosper, for customer patronage, period.
But what affects businesses positively? Adequate preparation and long term planning or just prayers? For something that has become a national pastime, prayers also go a long way, as the Mama Messi’s and traders at Iron Market would want us to believe. They are in good company, right in the corridors of power.
Last March, for instance, Mrs. Aisha Buhari, wife of President Muhammadu Buhari and first lady of Nigeria, got what she never bargained for from her compatriots. Ever since her disclosure in 2016 that cabals had hijacked the presidency in Aso Villa, Nigerians naturally lent her a sympathetic ear. Instead of the suspicion reserved for people living in the privileged insulation of the Villa, Aisha suddenly transformed into ‘a woman of the people,’ one who is bold and daring enough to speak truth to the shadowy cabals running, and possibly ruining, a government her spouse was supposed to be head of.
Mrs. Buhari’s disclosure sort of confirmed what some critics of the government had always suspected: the face was PMB’s but the cabals were the ones calling the shots.
Unlike the erstwhile first lady Dame Patience Jonathan who seemed to always run out of patience with others and sometimes unrestrained in her utterances, Mrs. Buhari kept a sagely silence from then on – until last March!
What did she have to say this time? Nothing about the secretive, all-knowing, all-seeing cabals within the presidency. It was nothing about family planning, either. It was something about what most Nigerian politicians, including her husband, have touted as a possible recipe for Nigeria’s myriad problems.
According to published reports of Monday March 28, 2022, the first lady called for prayers for Nigeria via her Facebook account the day before. Barely 24 hours after Aisha’s unsolicited supplication, Nigerians responded promptly, some wondering whatever for.
According to a reporter, William Babalola, who monitored responses to Aisha’s call for prayers, respondents disagreed with her from the onset. For most of them, her call for prayers smacks of hypocrisy, of not facing up to the reality on the ground.
“Forget prayer,” Olawale Aremu pointedly told the First Lady, asking that “for how long we’ve been praying?” and concluding that “Nothing has changed!!!”
Petra Akinti Onyegbule dismissed Aisha’s call for prayers outright. Another user, Max Ochai, took a subtle dig at the wife of the president. “We should be here praying while you and all other first ladies will be celebrating birthdays and every other occasion in Dubai.”
For Abubakar Sadiq Kabir, prayers isn’t enough. “Mommy, in this Nigerian context prayer is not enough! The people that added value and uplifted you and your entire family are seeing different results, people are suffering!”
A respondent from Kaduna state, Mustapha Hassan Giwa, shot down Aisha’s call for prayers. “We are always praying for our dear country, your Excellency our people in #Giwa_Local_Government area of Kaduna state are in terrible situation bloodshed every day…the number of refugees are increasing every hour. We are in need of immediate response and intervention from the #Federal Government and #NEMA in terms of security and food support.”
The First Lady’s call for prayers has an antecedent right in the Villa. In the January 8 2021 edition of THEWILL, the paper reported PMB’s exhortation to Nigerians to pray for the military in their aim to degrade Boko Haram.
Represented by the Minister of Defence, Major General Magashi Salihi during the Armed Forces Remembrance Day in Abuja that year, PMB told Nigerian to pray for the success of the military in their prolonged fight against the insurgents in the north east. Tagged “Year of Action,” the president said that “this year we will finish what we are doing; pray for us that we succeed.”
Despite the presidential call for prayers, the war against Boko Haram is far from over.
About the Author
Michael Jimoh is a Nigerian journalist with many years experience in print media. He is currently a Special Correspondent with THEWILL.
