What we are doing in Nigeria, which Obi’s interview is highlighting as wrong and should be discontinued, is exchanging work for prayer when the two should go together.
By Deborah Hassan
365Daily – Following heavy criticism over his remark that Nigerians spend productive hours in church rather than at work, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, has said his words were taken out of context.
The former Anambra State governor, during an interview on the Honest Bunch podcast released on Saturday, had argued that Nigerians spend too much time attending church services from Monday to Friday and suggested that time spent at church vigils should be converted into night shifts.
He also alluded the unproductive state of the country to two factors – politics and religion. His remarks were met with backlash as many Nigerians protest that the church and its attendance has no role to play in the state of the country.
Reacting on Sunday in a statement issued by his media aide, Ibrahim Umar, Obi said his account was twisted and blown out of proportion.
The statement partly read, “Our attention has been drawn to a huge twist in his recent media interview, saying erroneously that he called for the dismantling of churches in Nigeria.
“By the headline given to the interview, the import of Obi’s message has been greatly overturned and grossly distorted to serve a mischievous end.
“The Labour Party leader is well known as a man of strong faith who has enormous respect and love for every religion and tried in the referenced interview to bring to Nigerians how religion can be more effective in their lives.
“Obi, in the interview, was merely underscoring what Apostle James said in ‘Faith without Works is unhelpful.’ When Obi said that he would turn night vigil into production night, he was only stressing the importance of worshipping God through work.
“Even Jesus Christ never picked any of his 12 disciples where they were praying but where they were working as fishermen and tax collectors, among others.
“What we are doing in Nigeria, which Obi’s interview is highlighting as wrong and should be discontinued, is exchanging work for prayer when the two should go together.
“There is no evidence in the scripture that Jesus blessed an idle person. The problem in some of Nigeria’s worship communities is that they are not following St James advisory that we should be doers of the words.”