Do we have to pray for even water?

As if our enemies in the estate where I live are determined to do their worst against us, as we say it in Nigeria, the borehole which used to be the default alternative to Water Board water, also packed up. Specialists we invited to take a look at what is wrong with the borehole gave […]

As if our enemies in the estate where I live are determined to do their worst against us, as we say it in Nigeria, the borehole which used to be the default alternative to Water Board water, also packed up. Specialists we invited to take a look at what is wrong with the borehole gave us estimates we considered outlandish. As a result, our management did not pursue with any enthusiasm the option of getting the water source repaired and made functional again.
The result is that we are now saddled with buying water from water vendors. A full truck of twenty litres containers of the vital liquid costs N350. Depending on the size of each household, some members of our estate may have spent about N15-20,000 in the past two months on water alone, a sum of money that is princely even before these hard times came upon us.
The issue is biting so hard that some of us who pray have started putting the restoration of public water flow to our taps as number one item on our prayer list. Each day we pray with fervour and wait with great expectation for between 12 noon and 2pm the time Water Board used to give water to our neighbourhood, to see if God has touched the heart of the Water Board people to answer our prayer. Each day, our hopes are dashed and you have no option but to send your children to look for the water vendors to bring it the supply you need.
Last Sunday January 4, I went to the first church service of the year with renewed faith. After the congregational prayers, the pastor called upon us to make our private intentions or petitions known to God. You may not believe it but prayer for the restoration of public water to my estate topped the list of my desires. I returned home full of expectation because of the intensity of my beseeching God on that prayer point. When the usually appointed time for Water Board water came, I rushed to open the tap. Behold, the tap made a popping sound as if one was opening a champagne bottle, flowed teasingly for a few seconds as if mocking at me and stopped. When my expectation was again dashed, I sat down in dejection and was wondering why the Almighty God who has usually been faithful to me has been ignoring my prayer for water.
I felt I heard a voice tell me: ‘’Why on earth must you people in Nigeria have to pray to God for water? Has God not done enough for you already in that respect? He gave you people an ocean, mighty rivers, great streams with crystal clear water, scores of mighty waterfalls dotted across the country and rivulets in almost every village and town. In many parts of Nigeria you do not need to drill too far into the ground before you get water. You are not in Saudi Arabia, Libya or some other places where you need some engineering feats in order to harness water resources for domestic or for industrial use. Why do you need to pray to God at all for water? Are you people in Nigeria not overburdening God with your useless cries for basic amenities you have the money and ingenuity to provide for yourselves?’’
That voice has compelled me to reflect on our condition and if I become some activist of some sort, this voice should get the credit. It occurred to me that since Water Board ceased supplying my neighbourhood with water, it never felt accountable enough to even offer the people any explanation or excuses. And we the people, who have become used to being ill-served or not served at all by our public agencies, never saw the need to forcefully and constitutionally raise a hell of a voice demanding some explanation, or more appropriately positive action, from Water Board.
It also occurred to me that it is this type of relationship that is largely accountable for why we have such shoddy service or none at all from agencies of government set up with public funds to serve us. As a people so mightily endowed by God, there are some things we need to pray for and many others we need to, if possible, forcibly demand from our government.
The thing I think we need to pray for urgently is good leadership at all levels of governance. Poor quality leadership at all levels is the reason we cannot have basic amenities that others take for granted in other places. Fifty four years after independence and with the type of humongous amount of money that has come into the public till, there is no reason why by now Nigerians still need to pray to God for pipe-borne water. There is no reason why we still pray for stable public electricity supply. There is no reason why we cannot boast of a hundred kilometre stretch of pot-hole-free road in any part of the country. It is the sort of disgrace that should provoke us to a revolution. It is the sort of things we should not waste precious times praying about. If God ignores us, we should not think he has become deaf to our pleas. He is telling us that we ought to direct our petitions to more important things we cannot do for ourselves.
And one of them is getting good leadership. Even here, there is something we can do to have the kind of leadership we desire. The opportunity is coming again in February, only a few weeks away. If we learn to reject politicians who are thieves and who are incompetent and dishonest and vote for those who may not have money but are competent and honest to provide good leadership, we will learn to pray less in Nigeria.