My men brought a copy of the flier you made to my table. I think I still have it here. Yes, this green thing. It’s on the internet too, right? You see, I’ve always believed some of you don’t understand what it means to claim you’re a religionist. Now your flier is another confirmation. The report reaching me is that your group is organising a prayer session and the purpose is to curse the chairman of the nation’s electoral body. It’s here stated on your flier. You say you want to curse because the election umpire rigged results against your candidate.
Well, you’re free to do whatever you like with your time and pray whatever you like with your mouth. You can, since some of you don’t want to take the message to the streets anymore; rather it’s protests and curses you want to take to the streets. However, I invite you to my office to warn you that a new sheriff is in town, and I won’t brook any nonsense. As the state Commissioner of Police, I shall not hesitate to take action against you and your group at the slightest breach of the peace. I don’t always pay much attention to religionists. Now I want to start because the problem some of you cause is too much. You cause not just division but stoke tension and that latest threat by a religionist to the wife of the President is another example.
Wherever I was posted to serve in recent past I noticed that those who said they were religionists caused more tension than those who didn’t claim religion. Check the last election. Some of you issued threats against politicians, including the threat against the wife of the President. I can’t understand why issuing threats should be linked to people who say they have religion. It’s absurd. But these days anything is possible since many religionists don’t know the fundamentals of the religion they claim. My conclusion in this regard is that a few persons who’re organised exploit religion for all manner of personal reasons and they lure the larger population of adherents to follow them.
The gullible majority follows without asking the question: What did the originator of this faith say we should be doing? And what he says is in the holy book you use except that many of you don’t open it. If you do, you see that what he instructs is different from what you do. Some among you who front for others when politics is in the air, even though they’re trained to win people over to the faith, do it for their personal interests. But they package it like the interest of the religion each time they issue threats that heaven will fall if things don’t go their way during the election. It’s about their interest. Before the last election, you saw them collecting money from politicians and sharing it. It was in the newspapers how some members complained that the money from politicians didn’t get to them. Is that the religion the originator handed over to you – running after politicians to collect money?
Check those who position themselves as the link between politicians and religious sects. They or those who are close to them get political appointments. During election campaigns, I see some with religious titles make posters and billboards for politicians rather than take the message to politicians. The money spent on those posters could have been channelled into the work of winning people over to the higher being they say they serve. Unfortunately, many religious followers like you don’t give thought to these things. Rather you follow a few who say they’re fighting for religion. You too are fighting for religion, planning to curse a human being every religionist is called to bless? It makes me conclude that many don’t understand what it means to claim they’re religionists.
To publicly claim you have religion is a responsibility, not an announcement for the sake of it. Listen, you do religion. You live it. People see religion in your actions, and they nod that indeed you have religion. When you say you have a religion, you’re saying there are things we should be looking out for in you that non-religionists don’t have. But what do we see these days? What we see, even online, are people who claim they’re for one religion or the other, but they boldly insult others, insult people who are old enough to be their grandparents and swear at the first opportunity. Some talk religion now, mention prayers soon, refer to the holy books next, and discuss the person they sleep with later. Religionists?
The religionist is a model to others in how to talk, conduct oneself decently, and be a responsible citizen, even. Governments recognise this and it is the reason they treat religious organisations and their leaderships fine. Governments expect that these religious entities will raise citizens who are less likely to constitute problems to society, wasting government time and resources in the process. But check many who say they belong to a religion and carry holy books. What do they do? Are they any different from what people who don’t have religion do?
You see you and your group members aren’t the first set of people I notice lack understanding of what it means to say they’re religionists. There are many I notice who don’t even know what they’re saying let alone know what religion is all about. Religionists speaking with hatred. Religionists insult people of other tribes, a thing the originator of the faith never did. Do they listen to themselves? Look here, I don’t know what the previous occupant of this seat knows. But I tell you this, I’m amused at many of you who shout religion; in my position, I know the work of your hands is not good. And with the manner many of you go about it, you risk rendering your faith and the enclosures where you gather empty. You see that it’s happening in those other nations. It does because people don’t see the difference anymore between those who claim to have religion and those who don’t.
Some of you who loudly proclaim religion the most are the ones who understand least what you shout about. Unfortunately, those who should correct you don’t. Some of them even say you’re not their responsibility. So, what is their responsibility? Play politics when they’re actually trained for something different? Listen, since it seems no one has told you this before: If the holy book you use says you aren’t supposed to engage in physical battle, but physical battle is what you plan, then you have lost the battle before it starts. You have, because you don’t even listen anymore to the higher being you say you worship. Which horse stops yielding to the leading of the rider and still gets to its destination? That’s what you’re doing; you want to organise prayer to curse rather than bless.
Most people see it in what some of you religionists are doing. You’re where you are located in the country in order to reflect what you believe on those who don’t belong to your faith. But hating those same people is what you are doing. And all of you are comfortable with that? No one calls your attention to what you ought to be doing. So, you utter hate, insult anyone high or low, and swear at whoever you wish. Tell me: what’s the difference between you and those you say have no religion? Does it occur to you that it’s not praying you’re doing by saying you want to curse a fellow human? You’ve veered into sorcery, enchantment, witchcraft. You know what the holy book you use says about those practices, don’t you?
Before you go, let me tell you this about the holy book you use. I should tell you since you don’t know, and it’s because you don’t know that you erroneously want to become “Mount Ebal” and “Mount Gerizim” combined. This is what the holy book you use says about whoever organises a curse session that your group plans: “As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him; as he delightest not in blessing, so let it be far from him.” You may go now.