Religious But Unscrupulous

In as much as everyone will agree to the fact that the most difficult subject to discuss is the issue of religion, my conscience will not forgive me if I don’t write on this before I graduate from this great citadel of learning.

Religion is human beings' relation to that which they regard as holy, sacred, spiritual, or divine. Religion is commonly regarded as consisting of a person's relation to God or to gods or spirits. Worship is probably the most basic element of religion, but moral conduct, right belief, and participation in religious institutions are generally also constituent elements of the religious life as practiced by believers and worshipers and as commanded by religious sages and scriptures.

In as much as the university community has tried her best to ensure that religious discrimination is not mentioned among students, nobody will consent to the fact that it does not exist at all on campus. One will expect that in an academic environment such will not be mentioned.

Knowing full well that OAU is the second most religious institution in the world, one will expect these sons and servants of God to have transformed the entirety of the students to be vices free. These religious houses even do more harm than good.

Some of these religious houses have a habit of pasting posters in lecture theatres. They deface the walls without thinking of the destructive repercussion of their vicious actions. They do not consider the cost of painting and never have they ever thought of adding at least one to the few information boards that we have on campus.

Some of these religious houses have vehicles. Usually in the hot afternoon towards evening we will see a long queue of students sweating in the sun at the bus stop and just less than 500metres away at Fajuyi hall car park, you will see another long queue of buses belonging to religious houses well parked under the trees to cool. It reeks. Can’t they help the students on the queue to town at a subsidized rate? Wouldn’t that convince people to accept their Gods? Yet they come preaching to us holiness, sanctification, predestination, forgiveness among others. Something far more disgusting is the fact that an empty religious bus will drive pass the long queue without picking anyone of them and yet be found in town. This is satanic of our religious leaders.

Few of them will pick their members only. This is the case sometime on Friday when a Muslim man wants to have his Jumat service in town only to pick the Muslim faithful. The Christians are not left out in this act as they look critically at the numerous gathering of individuals to select their members especially when they want to go for camp. Even when the bus is yet to be full they may not help others as they anticipate that they may see some of their members on the way, only to get to their destination with half filled buses.

Another terribly disgusting but worthy of note is the way our religious brother make least judicious use of water. While having their cleansing before prayers, some of them will go to a public tap without kettles or container and open the tap to its highest and take their time washing. They not only waste water but delay other people wanting to fetch. This is horrific. Some of them go for room to room visitation of their members and forget to great the bunkmate of their member. Many of them forget to clean up the public places they used for programmes. They have zero cooperate social responsibility. All they do is pray.

Can’t they paint our badly faded Zebra lines? Can’t they organize leadership workshops for free or rather entrepreneurship workshops? Can’t they organize inter faculty competition that will unite all? Can’t they award scholarships? They make so much from the community, give so little to their members and nothing to the community. They are religious with no moral standing, no human feeling and high sense of discrimination towards others that are disinterested in their religion.

If the God you serve is the one that leaves the society a better place than it met it, then we are serving the same God. Don’t preach to me, preach to the needy, help the masses and I will believe in your God. Live for something; live in the interest of others. God is the greatest.

Afolabi Oni, 400level Education English OAU Ile-ife 08036126690