Everything in our great nation today has become expensive. Name
it; petrol, kerosene, transportation, food, health care services, education
etc. what baffles me the most is that the little things that are meant to be
our last hope are now expensive. These are Religion and tradition.
Religious clerics literally sell miracles which is supposedly
given to them free of charge by God. Imagine when someone who is searching for
a job is asked to bring N50,000 for prayers. Where do they expect you to get
that sum when you are not working? Each type of service by these so called “men
of God” now attract different sums. Some have even resulted in tagging these
payments as tights, sowing of seeds or offering. The other day I head of a
pastor collecting money to check peoples’ names in the book of life (imagine). Gone
are the days when the church feeds the poor (a few still do) as these days the
poor literally feeds the church. Only the wealthy and famous are according due
respect in the church. They have direct and unrestricted access to the men of
God while the poor queue endlessly just to have an audience with the same men.
Also, burial rites have become very expensive. Apart from
buying the caskets and finding a location for the grave, one has to contend
with payment of church levies before the religious men will come. The situation in the eastern part of our
country is worse as you have to virtually feed the entire town. You have
different groups (both religious & traditional) coming for levies and
trying to claim their stake on the dead person’s life (even if they did not
know this person).
Secondly, we come to tradition. Initially, only Igbos pay
huge sums as bride price. These days, marriage is so expensive that people just
get married in the church and wait years after (probably saving money) before the
conduct their traditional marriage. This happens in almost all the ethnic groups
in Nigeria. The implication of this if we haven’t noticed is that we are having
more unmarried eligible ladies roaming the streets. Men see them, love them,
want to marry them but does not have that kind of money to fund his traditional
marriage.
We keep blaming the government to making things expensive in
our nation yet the little we can do we fail to do. a time will come when people
will live with their husbands/ wives for years without getting married yet they
will have children. A time will come when people will just cremate the dead to
save cost (Lagos state has already legalized this).
We need to change things for ourselves and stop making life
more difficult than it already is.
-Nwaorah
