A letter to God

Dear Lord, I wrestled with the feeling of writing you this letter for weeks. People around me say that everyone in political office in Nigeria is there because you preordained it to be so.

I doubt this very much because you are Lord of truth, justice and your concern for the brow-beaten people is without fail. How can people who do not care about the underprivileged be ordained by you to lead them? This allegation is the invention of people who have decided to settle for less and not question anything.

Many a Nigerian want a better country free from oppression, the provision of basic amenities to make life tolerable but the free looting of public resources by little men in offices everywhere whose dignity appear to come from building up ill-gotten wealth hasn’t made this possible and there is no sign that we will ever get to the promised land, save for the many times when we had reveries creating pictures of virtual utopia of Nigeria in our minds.

I have read the stories of many men who rose to become wealthy: many got inheritances from their parents, some got loans from friends/banks to fund brilliant ideas and others became wealthy from wealth bequeathed to their wives by their parents. In Nigeria, most political persons are wealthy not from industrial activities but because they were once in the public service. I find this ridiculous because public servants anywhere in the world survive on pension after retirement after a laudable service to fatherland but many a Nigerian public servant, who isn’t a businessperson, is strikingly wealthy and I do not know how long this will last.

What is distressing and galling is to see people whose forte is to promote division among people dishonestly sit on political seats and deceive Nigerians that you made it possible and that there is nothing any man can do since power belongs to you and comes from you. It doesn’t matter if innocent people died for them to be in office.

Will you sit on your throne and not address these lies. How can some of these people who are known for dare-devilry link you with falsehood and expect to get away with it?

Many people want to run for political offices to serve the interests of the poor, but they do not have the hearts to do what these dirty politicians do. Politicians subscribe to the use of humans for ritualism for power, others bury cattle alive, put mentally unstable women in the family way and some have private armies of thugs positioned to beat contenders in the event that they choose to not kill them.

Animals have rights elsewhere and are killed with dignity but not in Nigeria.

Please, give these political persons the Saul’s treatment. The treatment Saul received on his way to Damascus.

Simon Abah,

Abuja.