Who do Nigerians say that I am?

Do we really love God?

I’ve been thinking about this question lately. We say it, we acknowledge it, but do we really love Him?

I was going to write about materialism and how social media has given us a platform to feed this demon that seems to live in the average Nigerian but after last Night’s award, I decided to write about this so called God culture that we have which for some reason does not actually reflect in our society.

So last night, many of the award recipients thanked God for their awards. At first I thought it was cute then as it continued throughout the show, I started to get uncomfortable. I’m not denying the place of God  in our lives but some of those films were for causes, and no one deemed it fit to mention the cause?

It makes me wonder if we made these films to bring the plight of the affected people to fore, or if we saw it as a platform to bring US to the limelight.  We awwww and oooooo over  the speeches at the Oscars but when we’re given a similar platform, all we can do is thank God?

Like I said earlier, this is not in anyway to deny the place of God but come on guys, When Jesus asked Simon whether he loved him and he answered in the affirmative, what did he say to him? He said ‘FEED MY SHEEP’! He didn’t say announce it to the world, He said to feed his sheep! Because it is not by words that you know God’s children by but their actions.

I think we feel that proclaiming God in public shows how much we love God. No it doesn’t, if anything it sounds hypocritical. You know why? Because our surroundings do not show our love for God, our way of life does not show a love for God, our thieving leaders do not show a love for God.  

That’s why there are so many churches but our society remains in the dark, unaffected by this God culture that we claim to have.

Was it not this God who asked us to love him with all our hearts and souls, and to love our neighbours as we love ourselves?  Did he not also say that there is no commandment greater than these? Can we beat our hands on our chest and say that we obey these commandments?  If we can, why is Nigeria still where it is. Our leaders do not drop from Mars, they are part of us.

While it’s trendy to visit orphanages and blast the pictures all over the media, it would also be great to use the award platforms to bring to fore the plight of some of our not so privileged neighbours particularly if we say that we made a film because of them.  It is not enough to call God at every given opportunity; to show how much we love him, we must show how much we love our neighbours.

PS. God bless Rita Dominic. God bless AMVCA. God bless Nollywood.