“Nigeria Will Favour Me and My Family.”
It’s one of the statements I hate the most ….from the depth of my soul. It became a chorus during the last elections, and every time I heard it, something inside me twisted. People say it with confidence, as though it’s a harmless prayer. As though it’s somehow noble to ask that a broken country miraculously favours only you and your little unit.
But let’s call it what it is: a deeply selfish, short-sighted prayer disguised as faith.
Because tell me….how does a country collapsing under insecurity, poverty, and fear “favour” just your family? If the nation burns but your household is left standing, do you truly think it’s the glory of God? Do you think it means you prayed more? That you’re special?
If Nigeria is only favouring your family, it means nothing is working — for anyone.
Nigerians love to blame the government, and don’t get me wrong, the government is terrible. But the rot didn’t start from the top. It started from us. From the average citizen who only thinks about their survival, their gain, their comfort. From people who make self-serving decisions and hide the selfishness under religion.
The countries we run to — Canada, the UK, everywhere we dream of…..aren’t perfect, but they work because the people in them think beyond themselves. They think in terms of community, not personal convenience. They build systems to protect the collective, not the chosen few. And that daily mindset is what makes them functional.
Meanwhile, in Nigeria, a lot of us simply… don’t care until it touches us.
And that’s why nothing changes.
Just this week alone, the country has experienced tragedies that should keep every one of us awake at night. Twenty-five girls were kidnapped from school. Then barely days later, reports of another hundred — maybe two hundred — children taken.
Nobody even knows the exact number. That’s how bad it is.
People are being attacked and abducted in their place of worship in broad day light….
And yet, life continues as usual. People are booking Detty December activities. People are posting skits. People are laughing. Because it’s not “their portion.” Because they believe Nigeria will still favour them and their family.
That is how wickedness survives…..through our selective empathy.
Through our refusal to feel anything until we are the victims.
It always starts small. Your neighbour’s child is taken, but you stay quiet because it’s not your own. Then it becomes your community, then your state, and before you know it, it becomes your doorstep. Because the more we protect only ourselves, the more evil expands its reach unchecked.
We cannot pray our way into a functional country.
Not with actions that contradict the prayers.
Change begins the moment we stop being short-sighted.
When we stop praying selfish prayers.
When we start thinking about the whole, not just our corner of it.
When we start caring about people we’ve never met.
When we finally understand that a nation is only as safe as its most vulnerable citizens.
Because no matter how loudly you pray, you can’t build a country on selfishness.
If you’ve read this far, I hope you sit with it for a moment. Not in anger, not in defensiveness, but in honest reflection. Nigeria cannot change if we only pray for our own safety. It cannot heal if we only care when trouble knocks on our door. So today, I’m inviting you—quietly, softly—to widen your circle of concern. Speak up when you can. Help where you can. Care beyond yourself, even in small ways. Because the day we start seeing each other as part of one collective story is the day things begin to shift. And truly, that day is long overdue.
Beks 💜
Beks Unfiltered 