Friday, January 8, 2016

Nigerians and the Plague of Predictions.

“16. Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling.
17. She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, ‘These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.’
18. She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, ‘In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to come out of her!’ At that moment, the spirit left her.” - Acts 16:16-18 (New International Version).
The above passage in the Bible often comes to mind at the beginning of every year. It’s that time of the year in Nigeria when every General Overseer, Bishop or other sundry spiritualist announces his “vision” of what the new year portends for individual Nigerians and the nation in general. And with what one has heard so far, many of the so-called predictions were arrant nonsense, some of them were the results of mere personal analysis of national events and others were simply lifted from internet reports. Yet, gullible Nigerians are (as usual) lapping them up.
I therefore imagine a situation where the spirit ordered out of the woman in the Bible passage crept into the body of a Nigerian bystander. That person only had to go into the Nigerian Christendom, wear the garb of a pastor and…boom…he or she would become famous and stinking rich. Why so? Ours is a society where people are always desperate for just anyone to foretell their future under the guise of “seeing visions”.

3 comments:

Anike Adebayo said...

I thought I was the only one that felt concerned about this problem with our people back home. It's so disturbing how educated people will believe these so-called future predictions.

Aduke Adesanya said...

This problem is just a manifestation of brain-washing. in the name of Christianity, our people back home have lost their minds. And the same minds are now under the control of some crazy, selfish pastors.

David Simpson said...

Incidentally, this religious problem is not limited to Nigeria or Africa. And neither is it a monopoly of the Christendom. It's pervasive all over the world and across all religions. For instance, some Muslims are in the habit of going to one cleric or the other to look into the future for them. And while some clerics use "spiritual" sand, others rely on their rosaries. It's a global problem but only for those who have submitted their lives to some mere mortlals like them in the name of religions.