Waiting for God to answer your prayers on security…

One day we were leaving Joe’s place in New Rochelle when he stopped me and asked me to repeat what I said. I repeated myself that better go come.

He paused like an actor looking for his words. Finally, he said: If Better dey come, make ‘e no tey, that is if better things are coming they should hurry up and come or it would be too late. Joe moved in the company of those who identify themselves by the tail number of their private planes. So, you would assume that Better has already arrived at his place. But that’s another matter for another chatter on another gather!
I was reminded of Joe’s admonishment to Better to hurry up if he is coming to him when my friend forwarded a report to me. It contained a report about he, the president of Nigeria, a retired major general with as many medals you can count, hoped that God would hear his prayers about the security of Nigeria. In the report, the president urged fellow Nigerians to add their prayers to his, hopefully, God in His heavenly abode would hear our prayers.

Anybody who is familiar with Nigeria knows you can hardly raise a subject for discussion without it being security. There are civilian senior civil servants whose desk is security. There are military officers whose duty is the security of the country. The Budget is full of billions devoted to the security of Nigeria. In spite of all these the president still hopes that God would take on the responsibility for the security of Nigeria. Why? Because the country is not secure. Nobody is safe in spite of the amount of money Nigerians spend on home security, including the cost of digital bar code.

There was the abduction of the Chibok girls from a secondary school in the middle of the night. Four hundred of them, their life ambitions quenched like that. If a boarding school is not safe where else can we seek safety except with God Almighty?

Everyday kidnapping and capturing of ordinary Nigerians and their guests for ransom has become something that is practiced at every level of Nigerian society. There are those who kidnap the small people for small money. There are those who kidnap big people for big money. The ransom that big people pay is in millions of Naira.

The police are there in their ragged uniform and shoes that do not match. Their stations, if you have been there, their only vehicle is on stone.

For the purposes of self pride the police would tell the citizen seeking police help by telephone that they had no petrol in their vehicles. What if they had petrol, will they drink it and follow the citizens on foot?

Sometime ago a Nigerian asylum-seeker in India said the reason he was seeking political asylum in India was because Indian doctors were using pigs’ hearts for human beings whereas in Nigeria the president is still praying for God to answer their prayers concerning state security. He wanted to be a citizen of a country of scientific achievers not a citizen of a country always on their knees praying God for one thing or another. The immigration officials wanted to know what he would contribute to India’s Science and he asked for some mathematicians and engineers to be present and made a few presentations. They thanked him. They unanimously asked him to go back to Nigeria. He begged them not to send him back to his death.

They asked him to go back to Nigeria and kidnap someone important and bring him or her to India. “No sweat”, he said. He went to Nigeria, found a partner who put a gang together and they were soon in business. In no time at all they kidnapped a senator, claimed a ransom on him and took him to India to prove his case. After this, he was admitted to India. He is today one of the most productive of Indian scientists.

Another Nigerian ended up in Ghana seeking. political asylum. Reason for seeking asylum in Ghana, of all places? He asked in turn if they had heard the expression “Ghana must go” and its origin. “Tell us!” “I don’t know what Rawlings did but over a hundred thousand Ghanaians were sent packing out of Nigeria. They were soon settled back in Ghana without much trouble. Whatever they did they did in time. They did not resort to prayers and to getting on their knees and so on, the Ghanaians had no problem at all. They granted him asylum strait away first class!!!

The last time we were privileged to visit the office of the Almighty we were permitted to study the part dedicated to prayers, as if they knew we came from Nigeria, the most prayerful country in the world, and we studied the place to the greatest detail. How many rooms do you think are dedicated to prayers? And how many personnel are dedicated to each room? There are five rooms to the left of the Almighty Table. According to the nearness to the A. L. they were marked, on the door as follows: URGENT, NOT URGENT, REMIND ME, DON’T REMIND ME, FORGET IT. Two secretaries are dedicated to each room. The busiest room used to be the Urgent room. Next was the Not Urgent and so on. But the day they stopped bothering was the day that the Almighty treated all the subject of the rooms in the same manner. Once a week He would take a careless look at each pile. `As the biggest pile was always the “Forget it” room it was always the least to be paid attention. Remember the civil servants who work in these offices are recent arrivals who are still to be sorted. They are still wrapped in the smell of the Earth. They could not be depended upon to make the right judgement on the living.

So, which ever way your prayer was sorted you had the same chance in hell for your prayer being answered. And depending on how important the person doing the praying, it would end up in the not urgent room because the same demand has been made many many times. So, if you are waiting for God to answer your prayer, you will have a long time to wait.