I went to church yesterday; Jesus has still not saved the Black Man

The black man is still the black sheep. Despite the blood shed on the old rugged cross, he is still scum of earth. I went to church again and the pews were filled as usual. The pastor droned on and on about the great commission but I could not just stop picking my swollen lip; evidence of food deprivation, sleepless nights and endless hustle for greener pasture. I wondered at that moment of Jesus will come soon enough so we can all be on equal playing field. We will all be caught up in the clouds and leave this world of races and geographical differences. We would be like Him and there won’t be any need to get a rickety bus from church back to my “squatter apartment” in this squalor where I call home.

“Jesus wants every soul saved and we should spread the word to everybody, even the white man!” says the Pastor. This same pastor whose wife has just delivered a bouncing baby girl for the fifth time and he will still go back home to blame her and ask for a sixth attempt. He is looking for a boy; we know. I would pardon the black man if we were not wallowing in so much ignorance, I bet Jesus would want us to work on that before any other thing. Maybe if we had some knowledge and we could actually afford our food, maybe sin would actually be unjustifiable for the common man.

Nigeria is the place where sin deserves to be the Law. A person would be so hungry with no form of relief yet the ‘gospel of repentance’ would still classify him as a thief when he steals to survive? Come on! Let us repair this land! We are an abomination, a filthy civilisation! We do not even care about the many souls that perish for no apparent sin but we hire megaphones and speakers to count transgressions from morning till night. What sins have we committed for these road accidents? What sins have we committed for the numerous deaths in hospital wards that have only penicillin and anti-malaria in limited supply?

Why are we so bent on winning the world while our black nation remains a total mess of ethnic dissent, religious strife and political injustice? A place where jungle justice and folly is the only entertainment we can afford? I walked out of church unflinching, I know my elderly friend is dead and her husband hospitalised, this pain followed me into church and I am aware that the Black man was never saved and may never be saved.