Asher's Blog

Nigeria is a deeply religious country. We pray in churches, homes, offices, buses and public gatherings. We organize vigils, prayer walks, fasting programmes and national intercession. We have prayed about insecurity, corruption, unemployment, poverty, infrastructure and political leadership for as long as many of us can remember.

Yet the country has not developed at the speed or to the standard our people deserve.

That tension should not lead us to conclude that prayer is useless. I believe prayer works. Jesus taught in Luke 18:1 that people “ought always to pray, and not to faint.” Prayer keeps the heart alive towards God. It preserves hope, aligns desire, produces endurance and reminds us that human power is not ultimate.

But perhaps we have sometimes asked prayer to perform an assignment God has given to human responsibility.

We pray against corruption without building transparent systems. We pray for good leaders while avoiding politics and public service. We pray for prosperity while neglecting productivity, knowledge and long-term capital. We pray for safety without doing the difficult work of intelligence, policing, justice and accountable government. We pray for transformation, then return to institutions whose daily practices reproduce the problems we denounced.

The question is not whether Nigeria needs more prayer or less prayer. The question is whether our prayer is producing wisdom, courage, competence, unity and action.

Prayer should not become a substitute for responsibility; it should form the people who take responsibility.

“Pray and not faint”

The statement in Luke 18 is important. Jesus contrasts persistent prayer with losing heart. In that sense, fainting is the surrender that occurs when difficulty persuades us to stop trusting God and pursuing what is right.

Prayer renews spiritual strength. It helps believers continue when visible circumstances provide little encouragement. It allows us to bring fear, grief and uncertainty into God’s presence rather than allowing them to rule our decisions.

However, the verse does not teach that every person who does not pray will immediately become physically weak, depressed, ill or exposed to disaster. Mental illness, disease and natural disasters have complex causes and affect religious and non-religious people alike. We should not use suffering as simplistic evidence that another person lacks spiritual power.

Prayerlessness does impoverish the Christian life because it rejects communion and dependence on God. But our public argument for faith should not be built on contempt for societies or people who do not share it.

The church’s opportunity is not to announce that everyone else is secretly dying while we alone possess life. It is to manifest the life of Christ through truth, service, justice, creativity, sacrificial love and excellent work.

Romans 8 says creation waits with eager expectation for the revealing of the children of God. That manifestation is not religious theatre. It is the visible fruit of people whose character and work demonstrate the reality of the God they proclaim.

Religion is not the same as walking by faith

A society can be highly religious without being deeply transformed by faith. Religion can become routine, identity, social belonging or performance. People may attend services, use spiritual language and participate in prayer while continuing to exploit employees, evade obligations, manipulate public resources or treat human beings without dignity.

Walking by faith is different. Faith trusts God enough to obey Him; it accepts truth even when truth is inconvenient. It refuses corruption even when corruption is profitable. It works patiently towards a future that cannot yet be seen.

James 2 says that faith without works is dead. The passage does not teach that human effort earns salvation. It teaches that living faith produces visible action. Dallas Willard expressed the distinction well: “Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning.”

We do not earn God’s favour by building roads, educating children or creating jobs. But people who have received grace should become energetic participants in what is good.

If our prayer does not affect how we keep time, honour contracts, manage money, treat subordinates, obey just laws and protect vulnerable people, we must ask what kind of spirituality we are practising.

Start with the value of human life

The first national value I would place above everything else is the dignity of human life.

Nigeria is multi-ethnic and multi-religious. We will not agree on every doctrine or cultural practice. A functioning society nevertheless needs a civic foundation strong enough to protect every person regardless of religion, tribe, gender, income, disability or political connection.

Human life must matter in policing, healthcare, transport, construction, environmental policy, justice and business. A poor person killed by an unsafe road, preventable medical failure, terrorism or unlawful force is not statistically less important than a wealthy person. A citizen’s dignity should not depend on whom they know.

The law must meaningfully restrain conduct that violates life, liberty and dignity. Investigation must be competent. Courts must be accessible. Consequences must be predictable. Public officials must understand that authority is held in trust rather than possessed as personal property.

Christians should be able to support this civic principle without demanding that everybody first become Christian. Jesus’ command to love our neighbour does not limit neighbourliness to those who worship as we do. Religious freedom and human dignity must protect Christians, Muslims, adherents of traditional religions, other faiths and those who profess no faith.

This is one area where my own language requires discipline. It is legitimate for a Christian to reject idolatry as a theological matter. It is not legitimate to treat people of other religions as intellectually inferior or less entitled to dignity. Persuasion, witness and service are different from contempt.

The idols we should confront in ourselves

Idolatry is not limited to a carved object. Anything treated as ultimate in the place of God can become an idol.

Greed can become an idol. Power can become an idol. Tribe, wealth, political access, celebrity and even religious leadership can become idols. A nation that speaks frequently about God while worshipping money and influence in practice has not escaped idolatry; it has only modernized its altar.

This is why the church must begin with self-examination. We cannot credibly denounce corruption in government while celebrating unexplained wealth in our congregations. We cannot demand accountability from politicians while treating pastors or founders as people who must never be questioned. We cannot oppose vote buying while practising favouritism whenever we control a smaller allocation of opportunity.

Hero worship weakens institutions. When everything depends on a powerful individual, processes become optional and succession becomes dangerous. Mature leadership creates systems in which truth can be spoken, authority can be reviewed and wrongdoing has consequences.

If we want God to be the hero, human leaders must stop cultivating dependence that belongs only to Him.

We need different prayers

Years ago, during a period of severe insecurity in Nigeria, I saw a long list of prayer points circulated for Christians across the country. Many focused on the destruction of terrorists, enemies of the church and people planning evil.

I understood the fear and anger behind those prayers. Terrorism destroys lives, communities and freedom, and government has a duty to confront it. Yet I found myself asking why we had repeated similar prayers for years without changing the questions.

What if we also spent days thanking God for what remains possible? What if we asked Him to expose our blind spots, give wisdom to security professionals, raise courageous public servants, strengthen investigators, improve intelligence systems, protect witnesses and reveal the financial networks that sustain violence?

What if we asked, “Lord, what responsibility have we neglected? What competence must we build? What institution should we fund? Who should enter public service? What information are we refusing to see?”

Prayer should do more than name an enemy. It should prepare us to become part of the answer.

Nehemiah provides a useful biblical picture. When he heard that Jerusalem’s walls were broken, he wept, fasted and prayed. Then he assessed the situation, sought authorization and resources, inspected the walls, organized workers and responded to opposition. Prayer and planning were not competitors. Prayer produced courageous, intelligent action.

Nigeria needs the spirituality of Nehemiah: people who pray with tears and build with a strategy.

Face the facts without losing hope

Serious prayer should make us more truthful, not less. The National Bureau of Statistics reported in the 2022 Multidimensional Poverty Index that 63% of people in Nigeria—about 133 million people at the time—were multidimensionally poor. The measure considers overlapping deprivations such as health, education, living standards, work and security rather than income alone.

In the 2025 Global Innovation Index, the World Intellectual Property Organization ranked Nigeria 105th among 139 economies. Rankings are imperfect and cannot describe all the creativity in our informal economy, technology ecosystem, arts and entrepreneurship. Still, they reveal the gap between our human potential and the institutions required to convert ideas into broad prosperity.

These facts should not become weapons for insulting Nigeria. They should clarify the assignment.

Optimism that refuses data is not faith. Faith can look directly at poverty, insecurity, weak infrastructure and institutional failure while still believing change is possible. Jim Collins calls this tension the Stockdale Paradox: retain faith that you will prevail while confronting the brutal facts of present reality.

We need both parts. Brutal facts without hope produce cynicism. Hope without facts produces fantasy.

Development requires cause and effect

I like science because it forces us to consider cause and effect. If children cannot learn, we must examine teacher quality, attendance, nutrition, curriculum, school leadership, funding and the conditions in which learning occurs. If businesses cannot grow, we must examine power, logistics, credit, regulation, skills, security and demand. If maternal deaths remain high, we must examine access, staffing, transport, clinical protocols, supplies and accountability.

Saying “Nigeria will prosper” does not identify the mechanism through which prosperity will occur.

God can perform miracles, but the biblical world is also full of ordinary means. Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s dream and then designed a storage and distribution system for the coming famine. Moses delegated judgment after receiving Jethro’s counsel. Proverbs praises diligent planning, honest weights and skilled work.

Common sense, research, engineering, economics and management are not enemies of faith. Truth belongs to God. If a bridge requires particular materials, prayer does not permit us to ignore structural engineering. If a vaccine prevents disease, gratitude to God should not require rejection of medical knowledge. If an intervention has repeatedly failed, humility should make us test another method.

We should pray as though we depend on God and work with the seriousness of people accountable for what has been entrusted to us.

Build a hundred-year vision

National development does not fit neatly inside an election cycle or the tenure of one charismatic leader.

We need the courage to think in fifty-, hundred- and even two-hundred-year horizons. What kind of society should our grandchildren inherit? What must be true about literacy, energy, health, transport, security, research, justice, housing and institutions?

Long-term thinking then needs intermediate commitments. If this is the hundred-year direction, what must exist in fifty years? What capabilities must be built in the next twenty? What measurable outcomes should be achieved within ten years? What laws, institutions, financing and talent are required in the next three?

A vision without milestones becomes a speech. Milestones without a long-term vision become disconnected projects.

The church can model this patience. Instead of measuring impact only by attendance, buildings and annual programmes, churches can ask what their communities should look like in a generation. How many children should become literate? How many ethical professionals, scientists, entrepreneurs, teachers and public servants should be formed? What problems should no longer exist around the church’s physical location?

Some results will take longer than the original leaders’ lifetimes. That is not failure. Planting trees whose shade belongs to another generation is one of the purest expressions of stewardship.

Do not leave politics and business to darkness

Christians sometimes speak about politics and business as though serious participation will inevitably contaminate them. Then we complain when these institutions are governed by values we oppose.

If ethical people withdraw, the space does not remain empty. Participation does not mean turning the church into a party platform or assuming that a person is competent because they use Christian language. It means encouraging qualified people with character to enter public service, policy, law, education, science, security, media, technology and enterprise.

They must enter with competence, not merely religious identity. A Christian engineer must still understand engineering; a Christian finance minister must understand public finance. A Christian legislator must read bills, understand trade-offs and serve citizens who do not share the same faith.

Business matters because sustainable enterprises create products, jobs, skills, taxes, infrastructure and capital. Money is not the only form of influence, and money can corrupt, but good intentions without resources remain limited. The church should teach people how to create wealth ethically, allocate capital wisely and treat employees with dignity. We need believers who can build institutions, not only organize events.

Learn carefully from other societies

It is tempting to compare religious Nigeria with less religious or differently religious countries that have developed faster. China, for example, has achieved extraordinary gains in infrastructure, manufacturing, science and poverty reduction while restricting many forms of religious organization.

That comparison can teach us that public development requires institutions, education, productivity, capital formation, technology and long-term execution. It does not prove that religious freedom is irrelevant or that material progress answers every human question. Development should also be evaluated through dignity, liberty, justice and the ability of people to live without coercion.

Israel is another country from which people often draw lessons. It has developed substantial capabilities in research, security, agriculture, finance and technology. But it would be inaccurate to say that Israel or Jewish people “rule every field.” Nations are complex, their achievements have historical and geopolitical contexts, and no ethnic or religious group should be described through myths of total control.

The useful lesson is more disciplined: societies that invest in education, research, institutions, networks and problem-solving can turn constraints into innovation. Nigeria should study methods without romanticizing any country or copying it blindly.

Christianity is not validated by a national innovation ranking, and unbelief is not validated by a motorway. Material development and spiritual truth are related in human life but are not identical questions.

Learn from history without simplifying it

Christian missions contributed significantly to formal education and healthcare in many parts of Nigeria and Africa. Mission schools created opportunities, developed literacy and trained generations of leaders. That legacy deserves recognition.

The history is also more complex than saying “the West brought enlightenment and Africans abandoned idols.” African Christians exercised agency, translated Scripture, founded churches, taught communities and reshaped the faith within local cultures. Missionary activity existed alongside colonial systems that also involved exploitation, coercion and racial hierarchy.

We honour the good without pretending the history contained no harm. The principle for today is that witness gains credibility when it serves human flourishing. People were attracted not only to preaching, but also to schools, hospitals, literacy and visible community. The contemporary church should ask what equivalent institutions this generation requires.

Perhaps they include excellent schools, ethical financial systems, mental-health services, research laboratories, apprenticeship networks, technology platforms, legal-aid institutions and businesses that create dignified employment.

The gospel should produce people whose presence makes society more truthful, capable and humane.

What is Africa’s position in the age of AI?

Artificial intelligence is reorganizing work, education, healthcare, security, finance and global power. Africa cannot afford to participate only as a consumer of systems designed elsewhere.

What data infrastructure do we need? Which African languages require datasets and models? How will our schools teach foundational literacy, mathematics, computing and judgment? How will we obtain reliable power and affordable connectivity? What rules will protect people without preventing useful innovation? How do we build companies that solve African problems and compete globally?

These are matters for prayer—and then for research, policy, capital and execution.

Churches can fund scholarships and laboratories. Christian universities can pursue serious research. Business leaders can invest in infrastructure and talent. Professionals abroad can create knowledge and capital bridges. Governments can establish clear rules and procure technology responsibly.

The answer cannot be another conference that ends with declarations nobody owns. Every gathering should produce named responsibilities, timelines, budgets and public measures of progress.

If we believe the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of wisdom, then believers should not be afraid of difficult intellectual work.

Leadership will require courage and time

People often say Nigeria lacks leadership. I understand the complaint, but leadership is not something we should wait for as though it will descend from the sky.

Courageous leaders must emerge in families, companies, schools, local governments, churches, professional bodies and national politics. They must communicate a credible vision, demonstrate sacrifice, build teams and remain long enough for trust to form.

People often follow leaders who combine character with competence and show that change is possible. But we should not depend on one saviour. The objective is not simply to replace a bad hero with a good hero. It is to build institutions in which leadership can be accountable and progress can survive succession.

This work may take decades. Some people will pay a price for confronting entrenched interests. Courage should not mean careless exposure to violence; leaders must plan, organize, protect people and use lawful means. Christian hope promises that death does not have the final word, but it does not make believers physically invulnerable. Boldness must be joined to wisdom.

Ask a harder question about relevance

The question confronting the church is not whether worship, prayer or revelation matter. They do. The question is whether what happens inside our gatherings produces any recognizable good outside them.

What does it mean to have one rich person surrounded by a hundred people who remain permanently dependent? Has the church developed capacity or merely concentrated access? Are members learning how to work, save, build, think and serve, or only how to return for the next intervention?

The answer is not to resent prosperous Christians. Wealth can finance extraordinary good. The question is whether prosperity becomes stewardship and whether our institutions multiply dignity rather than dependency.

We should measure more than attendance. How many people found dignified work? How many businesses survived? How many children learned to read? How many families gained access to healthcare? How many public systems improved? How many leaders remained honest when corruption would have been profitable?

The church must never become merely an NGO, because its central calling includes worship, proclamation, discipleship and communion with God. But discipleship that does not affect life in the world is incomplete.

From prayer points to action plans

Imagine if every major prayer initiative included a corresponding responsibility framework. If we pray about education, educators, funders, parents, technologists and policymakers should develop an evidence-based plan. If we pray about insecurity, qualified professionals should identify lawful interventions, institutional gaps and measurable outcomes. If we pray about poverty, entrepreneurs, financiers and community leaders should build routes into skills, work, ownership and social protection.

Each plan should answer:

1. What precise outcome are we seeking?
2. What are the verified facts?
3. What causes sustain the present problem?
4. What has already been tried, and what did it teach us?
5. Who possesses the necessary expertise?
6. What resources and authority are required?
7. Who owns each next action?
8. How will progress be measured publicly?
9. What risks could corrupt or derail the effort?
10. When will we review, learn and adjust?

Then pray over the plan. Ask for wisdom, favour, courage, protection and integrity. Return regularly with evidence. Give thanks for progress. Repent where ego, greed or negligence has entered. Change what is not working; this is not less spiritual. It is prayer taking responsibility seriously.

A society under God should become more human

My vision is not merely for Nigeria to become richer. I want a society in which ordinary life is dignified: where people can travel safely, trust basic services, breathe cleaner air, receive competent healthcare, educate their children and build without constantly negotiating disorder.

People who have lived only within dysfunction may not realize how much peace predictable systems create. A road that works, electricity that stays on, an emergency service that responds and a public official who follows a transparent process may appear ordinary elsewhere. In Nigeria, they can feel revolutionary.

These things are not impossible. They require planning, leadership, maintenance, enforcement, finance and a culture that respects shared goods.

The Christian contribution should be a faith that expands rather than diminishes human dignity. A society genuinely conscious of God should become more truthful, just, creative and compassionate—not more superstitious, passive or dependent on powerful men.

Pray, think and build

So yes, let us continue to pray. Let us pray because Jesus taught us not to lose heart. Let us pray because our intelligence is limited, our motives require purification and our courage needs renewal. Let us pray because fellowship with God is not merely a strategy for national development; it is life with God Himself.

But let us pray differently too. Let us ask for wisdom and accept the responsibility wisdom reveals. Let us thank God, face the facts, form long-term plans, build competent teams and measure results. Let us enter business, politics, research, education, security and technology with character and skill. Let us protect human life, reject corruption and replace hero worship with accountable institutions.

Let pastors release people into their callings rather than making the church programme the entire definition of service. Let professionals treat excellent work as part of discipleship. Let wealthy believers fund systems that outlive them. Let young people ask not only, “What can I receive?” but “What can I build?”

Prayer is not the opposite of work. Properly understood, prayer prepares us for work we cannot accomplish faithfully through ego and human energy alone.

Nigeria does not need to choose between spiritual power and intelligent planning. We need people formed in God’s presence who can think, organize, sacrifice, collaborate and remain faithful over decades.

The time has come to move from religious activity to living faith, from repeated declarations to responsible action, and from waiting for a hero to building the people and institutions through which a nation can flourish.

Pray. Do not faint. Then rise, think and build.

References and further reading

• National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria Multidimensional Poverty Index 2022.
• World Intellectual Property Organization, Global Innovation Index 2025: Nigeria Economy Profile.
• Jim Collins, Good to Great, particularly the discussion of the Stockdale Paradox.
• Dallas Willard, The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus’s Essential Teachings on Discipleship.
• Key biblical passages: Luke 18:1–8; Romans 8:18–25; James 2:14–26; Nehemiah 1–6; Genesis 41; Exodus 18; and Proverbs 11:1.

• John Stott, Issues Facing Christians Today.
• Dallas Willard, The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus’s Essential Teachings on Discipleship.
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship.
• Jim Collins, Good to Great, particularly the discussion of the Stockdale Paradox.
• National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria Multidimensional Poverty Index 2022.
• World Intellectual Property Organization, Nigeria’s ranking in the Global Innovation Index 2025.
• World Bank, Nigeria Development Update: Building Momentum for Inclusive Growth.

• • Key biblical passages: Luke 18:1; Romans 8:19; James 1:5; James 2:14–26; Nehemiah 1–2; and Genesis 41.