.....The kids got to their classrooms arranged their books, ready for the day activities. I then asked; were they not going to have a general prayer? The teacher answered, " in what religious mode"? . She said, this is a secular state and the school belongs to the state. The kids should have prayed with their families at
home, in any mode they believed in. That answer quickly gives me the real definition of a state where secularism is practised not the one I grew up to know. You are forced to make our Lord's prayer from Monday to Thursday and Suratul' Fatiah on Friday in a secular state owned schools I attended. The worse part of it was that as an adult, I went through torture of compulsory praise and worship every morning in a company I once worked for whether I like it or not, and the company is a secular
organization. How are we going to solve the problems of religious extremism and fanaticism in such society? It amazes me that as the Nobel prize award ceremony is going on to celebrate men and women with research and inventions that has made the world a better place, I saw my intelligent minds, the supposed intellectual future of my home country arguing on what the Bible or the Quran said. Some of same religious inclinations still condeming one
church and the others activities. I wonder why these guys wasted so much time and energy studying sciences and other courses in colleges instead of being in a theological seminary or Islamic colleges. In Nigeria today, we have religious scholars without any certificate in a religious field. The most lucrative profession in Nigeria today is religious leadership, you earn so much that you can build à University on
your own, fly around with private jet and even have countries presidents visiting you for spiritual contracts worth millions of dollars.

When will Africans wake up from their slumber? All we are looking for are miracles and eternal life without working for it. The African leaders seem to be working on this psychology of the people to keep getting their votes in order to keep siphoning their
commonwealth. They divide people with tribal and religious issues, in order to divert their attention from the government attrocities. My shout is for my people to make religious issues private, my belief system should not be anybody's problem. If you claim to have a secular society, make it practical. Separate religion from the state. This is getting too
much, people need to change their orientations. A serious govt in a secular state will not spend tax payers money in sending people on religious pilgrimage. According to Prof., Wole Soyinka in his book , " OF AFRICA", he stated thus; .......The intelligentsia also played into the hands of leadership, who were thus enabled to camouflage agendas of raw naked power under the authority of radical/progressive or religious ideoligical adhesion.

Demand of Matthieu Kerekou of Republic of Bénin for instance , what he understood of Marxism when he woke up one morning and declared his nation a Marxist state or of Chiluba what he ate the night before he declared Zambia a Christian state or of Ahmed Yerima, then the governor of Zamfara state in Nigeria, what revelation he had when, long before his exposure as serial pedophile, he pronounced his state -within a secular constitution-a Moslem state, to be henceforth administered to the Sharia. These are individuals to who a space of governance is a mere playground, no different from a golf course or a gambling casino........! Prof. did a great job in that book to summarize how we Africans are used as pawns in chess game of leadership by series of irresponsible and wicked government. The worse part of it is that , we all are buying to these their diversionary tactics (tribal and religious sentiments). The earlier we realised we are being used,the better for us.

Africans need to stop blaming the west or colonization for their current problems, ourselves and our leaders are our problems. Japan started from zero after after 1945 war, today they are amongst the world leaders, they even produced two of the three Nobel prize winners in Physics today. Where are Africans in the Nobel prize award ceremony? We are busy fighting ourselves on religious and tribal superiority. If Prof. Wole Soyinka had been arguing Bible or Quran as we are doing today, he would not had made us proud in bringing
the Nobel prize for literature home when he did. Those developed countries are not magicians, many of them are are more religious than we thought but they keep it out of governance. You have the right to practise your religious belief , so far it is not going to
cause violence or security threat to the Society. Heaven help those who help themselves. We
need to reorientate ourselves and start thinking and not allow people think for us.

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