Surely, there is God o!

We seem to be happy in making things difficult for ourselves and it looks as if we are finally digging a hole for our burial as well. Militarily, we are being hard-done by a non-professional Boko Haram army and there are tales of them over-running everywhere. They started from the North East but they seem […]

We seem to be happy in making things difficult for ourselves and it looks as if we are finally digging a hole for our burial as well. Militarily, we are being hard-done by a non-professional Boko Haram army and there are tales of them over-running everywhere. They started from the North East but they seem to be consolidating towards the Middle Belt as well. We seem to be helpless, or hopeless!
Economically, there are real fears of impending Naira devaluation. This is a matter of time since we are not capable of being productive or adding value to anything. Instead, tons and trillions of dollars are chasing (or being spent) on non-value and purely patronages issues with money developing wings and flying everywhere with nobody responsible for anything and everyone is being absolved of everything and nothing. It is a confusing trend indeed. It started from a $20 billion missing oil money to a situation where private jets are being deployed to ferry cash across borders. Yet, there are no culprits, no sufficient explanations, no suspects and no culprits. All is well and we move on at every point.
It has been reported that the Nigerian apex bank, the Central Bank, spent as much as $3.1 billion in the month of September alone out of our reserves in order to prop up the Naira and it is been speculated that that this and other efforts by the bank in the last one year may have been giving a lie to the true value of the domestic currency. For how long are we going to continue with the depletion of our reserves to prop up the value of the Naira?
And a clear economic developmental focus is missing. If you are spending on something that has a possible or potential long term economic or social developmental benefit, it’s easier to show understanding in bearing the brunt. Alas, aside from the 20:20:20 mantra or hypothesis being peddled over the last three administrations, we are yet to see anything that is moving us towards the fulfilment of this prophesy by the set date which is just six few years away!
Yes, you can rebase your GDP or GNP – and we were correct to have done that, but you have to physically construct your roads, build and equip your hospitals, schools, etc. Unfortunately, there are issues from which you can escape by ‘rebasing’!
Politically, we are in another web of confusion or conundrum. First, all the political parties are ‘hustler associations’ being godfathered by some self-style ‘emperors’, some of whom have little or no respect for the rule of law. They are no different, literally, from warlords and for most of them, ‘the end justifies the means’ as manifested by one them when quoted as insinuating that politics was a ‘do or die’ business. Therefore, because there are more similarities than differences in goals, objectives, principles and policies, it is very easy for players to cross-carpet anyhow as there is no basic difference between six and half-a-dozen.
Industrially, we are surely in a hurry to commit suicide. Our petrochemical/steel development dreams of the seventies and eighties (that could have helped in jumpstarting us industrially as a result of the inherent multiplier effects) are in limbo and we are now focused on paying lip service to ‘cassava bread’. Our commitment to the privatization process is doubtful as a result of the complaints about transparency issues (or, lack of it) surrounding the power reforms process. We seem to have lost confidence in anything and everything.
All these have led to serious social implications. Joblessness and lack of optimization opportunities generally on a fair scale have led to frustration, helplessness and hopelessness in the body polity, particularly among the youths.
Religionists, robbery and drug barons as well as war fomenters have now taken an undue advantage of the situation. While the religionists dole out fake promises and get the poorest to bring out whatever they have (or borrowed) in the name of sowing prosperity seeds without any viable foundation, the robbery, drug, kidnapping and war lords have extended to them an immediate incentive to deal in crime and be wealthy (which, incidentally, the religionists have promised, albeit without any feasible or legitimate route).
We are now in a jungle; everyman is for himself. As they say in some old generation churches, ‘we have left undone what we should have done and, instead, done that which we should have left undone; the truth is not in us’. Whenever I hear these words being said, I wonder whether the author was thinking of Nigeria when the words were been written!
And we spend eternity and huge chunks of money in looking for God. As it were, God is in us but, because we have refused to listen to his voice, He is no more in us. He seems to have abandoned us but, in actual fact, we are the ones that have abandoned him out of the intent of our evil hearts to listen to the promptings of our desires.
But, yes, there is still God. He is not to be searched for through telescopes pointed to the sky. He is not up there. Neither is He domiciled in Jerusalem or on any ill-maintained or semi-abandoned expressway. But He lives in us – through the silent voices of our respective individual and collective consciences.
Surely, there is God o!

Obadimu is a director with the Nigerian Institute of Management <[email protected]>;