A few days ago, I attended a lecture that was given by Sir Mark Walport, the Scientific Adviser to Her Majesty’s UK Government at the W5, which is an award winning science and discovery centre that showcases over 250 interactive exhibits in the area of science and technology for children and adults.
Sir Walport’s mission to Belfast, United Kingdom, on behalf of the Government was to speak with the Northern Ireland’s people on the issue of climate change and what to do about it. I watched with admiration as he tried to explain why all hands needed to be on deck to reverse the trend of global warming by reducing harmful emissions from industries, cars and homes, while NI politicians like Basil Mcrea, genuinely concerned about unemployment rate, wondered why they, ‘a small portion of the UK’, needed to slowdown industrial development just so that the UK could lower its carbon footprint.
In the audience, there were academics, politicians, students, industrialists, senior citizens, leading women entrepreneurs, etc, each one of them interested in understanding and playing his/her role as an individual and as a member of a group so that they can leave behind a better world for their ‘great-great-grandchildren.’ I kept looking around and wondering why they were not leaving this issue to God, after all, they will be dead by then.
It is against this backdrop that I write this piece today to ask us why we keep waiting for miracles from God. Right now in Nigeria, the following people are waiting for God: schoolchildren, parents, the security personnel, the insurgent soldiers, the insurgent leaders, the northern leaders and politicians, the governors, the president and the ordinary citizens like you and me.
Our children wear their uniforms, carry their backpacks and head to school praying that they will come back safely. They have heard stories about many children that did not make it back from school, and these affected schools comprised both Islamiyya and Western-education schools. This confuses these children the more, but they are sent to these schools by their parents and so they have to go to. They don’t know why they are going to these schools; they don’t know why they are being killed. And so they go to school everyday while they wait for God to protect them.
The parents are also waiting for God to intervene. They love their children and like other human beings, they want these children to grow up, become useful to society and to at least pray for them (the parents) when they are gone. To do that, the children need education, both Islamic and Western. While they do not have the option of homeschooling in Nigeria, they have already lost faith in the security forces, reflecting that the forces are having difficulty defending their own bases not to talk of other people’s children in disparate schools. And so they send these children to school hoping that God will protect them as they learn.
Strangely, the insurgent is also waiting for God to intervene. As he is convinced by his leaders that he is doing God’s work by taking innocent lives to further his religious cause, he can see the enormity of the challenges everyday.
He is forced to lead a double-life, hiding his identity, evading the security forces, and ‘risking his life’ every now and then to kill more of his ‘enemies’. He looks around him and he sees how the vibrant society he grew up in is becoming a sad ghost of itself on his own account. I want to believe he is also waiting for God to show him a way out of this quandary. In his reckoning, the best outcome is for him to achieve his goals or to die a martyr. For either of these, he is waiting for God.
That is why it seems like the President is also waiting for God. His strategies do not seem to be working according to plan. With all the money the government is sinking, the insurgency is not abating. More lives are being lost everyday.
The gains that were being celebrated after declaration of the state of emergency in the affected areas have since evaporated. Shekau seems to be alive, children are abducted, people are dying in the markets, children are dying in schools and 2015 is nearby. As the ruling party appears to disintegrate, as money disappears for government coffers, as his aides seem to complicate issues rather than solve them, the President must be waiting for God to intervene.
My ‘countrypeople’, it is beginning to look like our God Almighty… is waiting too. He is waiting for us to get tired of waiting for Him, perhaps then we will realize that He has already done His part. He has created us, created the court and created the ball. All we have to do is play for our lives. And then He will help us.
