"Religion Has Messed Up Many A Promising Life!"

(By Emeka Oparah) - Now, this is how people are being wasted! 
         I visited a cousin last weekend. We hadn’t seen each other for over a year. Expectedly, there was a lot of catching up to do including the rising spate of sudden and “inexplicable” deaths, especially of young people. In actual fact, there were more than 5 funerals due back home in the village, as we were talking-and that, my dear friends, bothered us a whole lot. Then, he told me a story.
         Last Christmas, he was home (while I was abroad, ironically). A diabetic, he probably over-reached himself, and started feeling “one-kind”. He asked to be rushed to a hospital and was taken to one of the better ones. As soon as the doctor saw him, he ordered he be given a drip! Drip, Father wondered. Yes, drip!
         “Doctor, why would you give me an infusion when you haven’t even asked me any questions; you haven’t taken my vitals or requested my medical history”, he questioned.
         The doctor took one cynical look at him and sarcastically asked him: “Are you a doctor? If you are, why then did you come to me. May be you’re not sick. When you are sick enough, you talk to me!” And with that said, he called the next victim, sorry patient.
         Crazy!!! And that’s how one of the folks, due for burial this weekend in the village, died. She too is a diabetic. A widow, her mother-in-law was to be buried the next day, and she suddenly started feeling sick. She called her friend, a “nurse”, who then gave her an infusion right in her bedroom and went away. After an hour or so, concerned family members went to check on her and found her dead!!! I’m not sure they didn’t say her late mother-in-law took her! You never know these things.


Look, my friend, ignorance is a major disease. When you know not and know not that you know not, that’s dangerous. If the priest didn’t interrogate the “doctor”, he probably would be dead by now-and certainly won’t have hosted me. And guess what? They’ll say “it’s the wish of God.” Or “that’s how God wants it!” Or they’ll just say that notorious “it is well” and get ready for the next death and next funeral.

Ignorance is one and carelessness is another. People, even educated men and women, ignore every sign and indication of ill-health until it is an emergency. Listen again to the Panadol commercial and pay especially attention to the part which says “if symptoms persist after two days, please consult a doctor!” 

That’s what should happen but are people following the instruction? No. Rather, they keep self-medicating, if at all. Others, pray, drink “holy water” or apply Anointing Oil on the part of the body troubling them! That’s another challenge, in fact the biggest challenge: religion!

Religion has messed up many a promising life! People consume volumes of prayers, holy water and anointing oil sold or given to them by their pastors while the pastors and their families retain the services of the best doctors at home and abroad. Stupidity!!! The consequence is that people first see their pastor or even Babalawo and apply whatever they prescribe until it gets so bad that they are carried helpless to the hospitals, often BID (Brought in Dead!). 

In actual fact, people no longer die natural deaths. It’s always a spiritual or evil attack from an enemy, usually an envious relative or spiteful colleague. A colleague, who’s been undergoing physiotherapy for pains in her arm was recently advised by another colleague to seek spiritual help. Another colleague with fibroids have been drinking holy water and rubbing anointing oil on her tummy for two years while she bleeds ceaselessly. Incredible!!!

True, the public hospitals may have been messed up, but the minds of many people are even more messed up. The rising spate of religious Pentecostalism have had deleterious consequences on the way people manage their health-and indeed their lives, generally. In the end, the hospitals now suddenly look more like morgues, because patients are now mostly brought in at the advanced stages of their sickness. 

Don’t misunderstand me, please...I have nothing against praying for anything including good health. What I preach against is asking God to come down from above to do things He’s already given us authority and dominion over. Prevention is better than cure, we are told. So, one has to be cautious to avoid situations that predispose one to ill-health. Then, if sickness comes, one should quickly seek a cure even as one seeks divine intervention-probably to guide the doctor right and make the medicines work! Or what else can I say about that?

We seriously need a revolution of our minds. The same church, which seems to currently dominate social interactions, should lead the campaign. Men and women of God should speak up. The National Orientation Agency sure has its job cut out for it. Unfortunately, they are so busy chasing Bobrisky to spend valuable time on things that really matter. Then, Government. I think a businessman should have been appointed minister of health so he can focus on engaging the private sector and donor agencies as well as well-to-do individuals to invest in the health sector. The situation is bad. At the individual or group level, we need to organize more medical missions to our villages, to intervene in the fast deteriorating situation down there.

Aside those being killed by “Herdsmen” and other bandits and accidents, too many people are dying needless, avoidable, preventable deaths!