Let’s begin with a discussion on the homily of Matthew Hassan Kukah, the Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sokoto. A tireless advocate for justice, democracy and human development. Bishop Kukah had posited: “We pray too much in Nigeria. It’s time to embrace science and technology. After independence, in order to build a great nation, each country went to work. But in Nigeria, after independence, our people went to pray and fast. So, while we were praying, Malaysia came here and took our palm seedlings and build a great factory of it. 

“While we were praying, India went into ICT. While we were praying, China went to massive industrialization. 

“While we were shouting Allah Akbau! UAE went into massive infrastructural development. While we were binding and casting Lucifer, Japan went into technological development. While we were speaking in tongues, Denmark went into education of her citizens. While we were mounting big speakers in our places of worship, USA was mounting man on the moon.”

Suffice to say that Nigerians are a bundle of contradictions as they displayed external religiosity without the fear of God.

Consequently, Nigeria has been ranked second most prayerful, but worst corrupt country. Most prayerful and one of the poorest on earth – prayers without innovation, I presume. I believe in prayer, but I also believe prayer without the use of knowledge and proper leadership in place in a country like ours is effort in futility. Our prayers must be planned and purpose-driven. Therefore, it is imperative that any system built upon that type of structure that nobody has a deep sense of belonging or patriotism to say ‘this is our own,’ is not going to last.

Let us digress a little, the puzzle that remains unresolved is 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. Incidentally, it is within this state of affairs that our leaders have found prayer as the solution to the problems. This contribution 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.

Nigeria and Afghanistan are like siamese twins in terms of praying – they can pray salt into a soup without buying any ingredients for the soup. They’re that good. Nowadays, it feels romantic to think of the banishment of religion. However, without religion, morality has no firm foundation, no supernatural content and context and can most likely produce mischief-making egomaniacs. New report ranks Nigerians second most prayerful people on earth according to a research by the Pew Research Centre, Nigeria took the second position with 95 percent prayer rate. 

The Pew Research Centre is a non-partisan American think-tank based in Washington, D.C. Find below a list of the most prayerful countries on earth.

1. Afghanistan: 96%

2. Nigeria: 95%

3. Algeria: 88%

4. Senegal: 88%

5. Djibouti: 87%

6. Iran: 87%

7. Iraq: 87%

8. Niger: 87%

9. Indonesia: 84%

Meanwhile, the likes of China (1%), UK (6%), Switzerland (8%), Austria (8%), Czechoslovakia (9%), Germany (9%), Estonia (9%) France (10%) and Denmark (10%) are the least prayerful. Find below the lists of the less prayerful countries on earth.

1. China: 1%

2. UK: 6%

3. Switzerland: 8%

4. Austria: 8%

5. Czechia: 9%

6. Germany: 9%

7. Estonia: 9%

8. France: 10%

9 . Denmark: 10%.

For the records, Nigerians are known for endless prayers with less commitment. This is an issue of serious concerns about prayers without commitment.