We Africans are reputed to be notoriously religious. Our
faith is not divorced from our everyday life. More so, in Nigeria, our faith imbues our everyday actions
and behaviors. This is evident in
how much faith or religious-flavored expressions have permeated our everyday
parlance. And that cuts across all
strata of social interactions. “God dey,” once the solace of the poor, I
am told, has also become a succor for the rich. Someone once said to me, “Father,
na before dem dey talk say ‘God dey’ na poor man prayer oh. Now na rich people even dey pray am
pass.”
We are familiar with the passion
with which many Nigerians forever cover everything with “the blood of Jesus” or
perpetually “cast” and “bind” and then send whatever it is “back to the sender”
or “to the bottomless pit.”
Indeed, “God pass dem.”
Phrases like “to God be the glory” (a favorite of Nollywood home videos), “na God” and “by his grace” have become
acceptable ways of acknowledging greetings and compliments. Some of my
non-Nigerian friends, all thanks again to our enchanting Nollywood movies,
tease me to no end with “my broda, we
thank God oh, we thank God oh.”
All of this indicates that, for
good or bad, faith orients our lives, albeit in some quarters, shallow faith
and popular religiosity lead to faith schizophrenism, an unstable, inconsistent
or contradictory mentality or approach to faith, a situation where one is
neither here nor there. This
results in an eclecticism that drives one, as we say, from pillar to post, as
one traverses all kinds of churches, spiritual homes, shrines, and beaches—in
the name of searching for healing and answers to prayer.
