Dear Chidi,
The watchword is "Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery" (The Rev. Bob Marley)
"Religion is the opium of the people" (Karl Marx)
A major task : "to liberate the minds of Nigerians from religion, obnoxious traditions, etc., through a well funded and professionally administered "Bureau Of National Re-Orientation" (Chidi Anthony Opara)
Of course, I agree with you whole-heartedly and I also understand that you were using a poetic hyperbole there, as poets usually do, either consciously or unconsciously, maybe not THE MAJOR TASK but A MAJOR TASK nonetheless.
Whatever happened with Dr. Bedford Nwabueze Umez and his column "Liberating the African Mind"?
(One of the problems is that there are many kinds of minds of African origin, some more in need of that kind of medical attention, than others. Must listen more attentively to Kwame Anthony Appiah's deliberations on the subject...
It's true that some of the foreign (colonial) imported slave-trading religions have done a lot of good and some of the most dispassionate historians will also admit that some of those religions have also done a lot of evil, indeed religion/ religious dog-ma/ religious philosophy/ theology – religious terrorism has enslaved and continues to enslave and mislead some people and to thereby arrest some of the cohesive efforts at national development.
Take Boko Haram and their weapons of destruction as an infamous Nigerian example. They have to be deprogrammed.
Take some of the wealthy Nigerian pastors for example, they may say like their master, that their kingdom is not of this world, yet they fleece their flocks. Do they pay taxes? Do they seek perfection by following Jesus? Did they ever take to heart the Gospel story about the rich young man who came to Jesus and Jesus' advice to him to dispose of his wealth and to go follow Jesus…
Remember your good man, Goodluck Jonathan...
The task is enormous…
Pray for us
Cornelius
On Wednesday, 16 November 2016 23:29:25 UTC+1, Chidi Anthony Opara wrote:
If I were to be the President of Nigeria, my major task would be to liberate the minds of Nigerians from religion, obnoxious traditions, etc, through a well funded and professionally administered "Bureau Of National Re-Orientation".
CAO.
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