Sir: Worship centres (especially new churches by those who continually hear the voice of God urging them to start their own churches!) spread like bushfire because of millions of blind proselytes seeking “salvation” that would guarantee smooth entry into “paradise.”
“Salvation is free!” is always the initial main slogan to draw unsuspecting victims and then later, there is a slight adjustment to include “Sowing a seed”, (for salvation to be drawn nearer and achieved). Money ultimately becomes the main issue without which “no one would either obtain salvation or “enter the kingdom of God!” even though the love of it is also said to be the root of all evil.
Those who watch all the open contradiction embedded within the same puritanical practices are never given the freedom to raise any eyebrows. Education itself has no recognisable impact in the lives of those whose entire being are already dominated and patterned into accepting everything hook line and sinker based on the convictions that raising salient questions was tantamount to challenging the Almighty God himself.
Not surprising is the fact that included among those to be found at the forefront of such false camps of indoctrination are those who even though have acquired so many certificates in terms of paper qualifications nonetheless are still held captive within the hierarchy of subjectivity.
And since literacy, academic achievements or attainments, or even another the lack of it have neither clear boundaries nor noticeable distinction among a race dominated by either their local superstition or with an admixture of imported variants where an acclaimed professor is also a pastor, riding two worlds like a fallen colossus, the advanced world hold certificates issuing from the jungle of complacency with great contempt treating them as if they never existed and insisting on anyone hoping to make any inroads into the western employment patterns passing through a fresh round of learning and trainings probably to clear off all dogmatic encumbrances before any immigrant is accepted into the mainstream of modern and more realistic cultures.
It is only after relocation to foreign lands most strict adherents of religions discover that the highly desirable heaven of the hereafter is even possible here on earth with convincing good governance. It is in foreign lands the culture of clustering around worship centres all year round is diffused and strict labour schedules on which every system works becomes the major focus.
Even here in the arena of extreme ignorance, the main beneficiaries of large religious gatherings are always the supercilious clairvoyant who live larger than life enjoying every bit of a regime of celestial bondage.
It would never occur to any of the utterly gullible worshippers or their deeply conceited General Overseers that even if heaven truly exists somewhere else apart from the ones made possible through human efforts and good governance, their innate preference for lies over honesty, their propensity for promotion of evil over good, their irredeemable bias and innate ethnic sentiment responsible for irreconcilable differences and divisions, extreme greed and overwhelming selfish interests, congenital and deep-rooted bitterness and hatred against success in others, and their general filthy environment and nature would never make any of them suitable for such holy place meant for only saints.
Jide Oyewusi is the coordinator of Ethics Watch International Nigeria.
