Religion and People's Hopes

The special arrangement of God is that people must be well cultured into the ethos of integrity even at the raw stage of their lives and that they must be well educated through affective, cognitive, and psychomotor domains into the culture of organizational and professional ethics and to the glorious level of understanding the word of God through the Scriptures to the application realm of exemplary lifestyles for them to be able to get to the credence level of leadership credibility that will make them key easily into good management and effective administrative network for good governance in any capacity they may be called upon to serve.

This is why the Almighty God admonished us to embrace the culture and environment of love for other organs of life to be effectively functional.

1Cor. 13: 13, refers, ''So these three things continue: Faith, Hope, and Love. And the greatest of these is love.''

And all these things work for the people as reported by the Holy Quran and the Holy Bible to the outstanding level of realizable objectives for the Holy Prophets in the Holy Quran and the Holy Bible.

It used to work, even in the old times, in Nigeria, when the number of Churches and Mosques, as well as the number of schools, could easily be counted without any mental task.

In those glorious days, except that God did not approve of idolizing such objects into gods and goddesses. Miracles were truly wrought and solutions to human problems were easily solved by these three sectors of spiritual importance.

This was because people loved themselves and kept good neighborliness. There was scanty money in the hands, but the food was in abundance to satisfy the physiological needs of the people.

Stories of hired killings, armed robberies, insurgency, and other violent crimes were alien to the people, while everyone cared for his neighbor with passion. The absence of care today has resulted in human intolerance, institutional indiscipline, economic sabotage, ritual killings for quick money, the craze for wealth to the level of what is not needed, greed and avarice, self-centeredness, and business as usual in positions of authority are all anti-scriptural and anti-thetical to the society, with this kind of environment, just worship is difficult to be realized even with the population target theory of the Churches and the power-grabbing focus of the Muslims as well as the countless number of Churches, Mosques and other faith-based organizations. Religious leaders and their adherents are now swimming in the viscose of political theater, confused as they are and neither been accepted by the society or trusted as the messengers or people.

We all need to retrace our steps back into the ordinances of God as scripted in the curricula of religion. It is a matter of regret that today, no religious leaders can with the certainty of authority

repeat the statement of Jesus Christ without been booed.

Matthew 11: 28-30, refers, ''Come to me all you people that are tired and have heavy burdens. I will give you rest, accept my work, and learn from me. I am gentle and humble in spirit and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, the work that I ask you to accept is easy, the burden I give you to carry is not heavy.''

People without exemplary lifestyles and with records of rot in the past cannot be trusted with the above statement, this is because followers may be hoodwinked, but not all of them can be cajoled.

In the same way, the area of character attestation is emphasized by the Holy Quran, with the reward of relief from heavy burdens from any form of yokes.

With the submissions of God, the almighty Allah, in the Holy Quran 7: 157 critical surveys on Muslim leaders and in-depth research on their conduct reveal that the beautiful ones are not yet born, most especially in Nigeria.

This is why we cannot credit reasonable input into the nation-building to these two dominant religions in Nigeria, including the other faith-based organizations because of the lack of been Scripture compliance.

Quran 7: 157 refers, ''Those who follow the messenger, the unlettered prophet, who they find mentioned in their own Scriptures,-in Taurat and the Gospel;-For he commands them what is just and forbids them what is evil; he allows them as lawful what is good and pure, and prohibits them from what is bad and impure: he releases them from their burdens and from the yokes that are upon them: So it is those who believe in him, honor him, help him, and follow the light which is sent down with him,- it is they who will prosper.''

The analysis of the above quote shows the characteristic feature of the attitudinal building and character attestation], the benefit of been Scripture compliant as a reward of freedom from the devil and divine healing for the adherents to realize their nutrition, health, and wellness needs.

For such a person to maintain and sustain the lofty

 the reward that cannot be bought with money and that cannot be given by people, they must strictly follow the ideals of the prophets of their chosen religion like Jesus Christ and Prophet Muhammad.

For us as living souls, let us follow the contents of Quran 4: 59 to meet up.

Quran 4: 59,''O believers! Obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those in authority among you. Should you disagree on anything, then refer it to Allah and His Messenger, if you ˹truly˺ believe in Allah and the Last Day. This is the best and fairest resolution.''

Let us be Scripture compliant for just worship in our chosen religion to be able to have sufficient spiritual endowment to drive our socio-economic and political desires to the point of maximum realization without hitch.

Founder, Spiritual Head and Grand Imam Shafaudeen-in-Islam Worldwide,Wakajaiye, Ibadan, Nigeria