Reality and Rhetoric: Nigeria Prays, Yet Private Primitive Capital Accumulation Persists

Abstract

Nigeria’s status as an oil producing nation with an enormous revenue generation capacity from other non-oil exports, woefully contrasts with the extreme poverty of her citizens and her decaying infrastructural and institutional development. This state of the nation has been attributed to pervasive corruption, lack of public accountability and the “capture” of public services and resources by the ruling elite. Recent disclosures, about large scale malfeasance in the past eight years illustrate the point being made. Incidentally, it is within this state of affairs that our leaders have found prayer as the solution to the problems. This paper contends that prayer, whether in the
Christian, Muslim and African Traditional forms, is essential for human activities and existence. On the other hand, it argues that for the receipts of God’s blessings, Nigeria must at least ensure that she makes deliberate effort to do God’s will by judiciously using his gift for the good of all. It believes that corruption (the absence of transparency and accountability) is therefore largely to be blamed for the reversing fortunes of the economy and the concomitant deplorable, poverty-stricken situation of Nigerians. It therefore concludes that we have to go back to our viable value base and good governance system if the nation must move up with others in this competitive
world of globalization. The combination of prayer with the above will certainly put Nigeria back in her deserved pride of place in the globe.