The Culture of Death, False Hope, and a Continent Drowning in Hopelessness
Paul was my pastor once.
I still see him occasionally at Eko Atlantic, walking.
I walk there too when I need to think.
I assume he does the same.
He supported Goodluck Jonathan.
He supports Donald Trump.
What else is there to say?
And yet, in all this, he has often aligned himself with governments that budget humongous sums for infrastructure projects while the least of our brethren languish in hopelessness.
A Conversation at Lewisham Station
Yesterday, while waiting for a train at Lewisham station, a Black man approached me and handed me some Christian tracts.
I opened them and immediately noticed the logo of a popular Nigerian church.
I mentioned the pastor’s name.
“Yes,” he replied.
And I answered bluntly:
“That is not Christianity.”
The man seemed genuinely interested, so we continued talking as we boarded the train toward Gravesend, a rather interesting name considering the direction of our conversation.
We spoke at length.
One thing struck me deeply.
Again and again he said:
“I know some of what people do is wrong. I know it is wrong. But I want to be part of you people. I don’t want to be lazy. I want breakthrough.”
That word again:
“Breakthrough.”
The Theology of the Hook
He began speaking about anointing oil.
“If you have faith,” he said, “the results come. The breakthrough comes.”
And I told him something important:
Results do not automatically validate theology.
Something “working” does not make it true.
In fact, it may be entirely in Satan’s interest for certain false sacraments to appear effective.
A fish sees bait on a hook and gobbles it up.
Sometimes it escapes.
And because it escaped, it becomes confident.
“Look at me,” the fish says.
“I have been feeding on hooks for weeks. I know how to pluck the worm without getting caught.”
But one day, the hook holds.
One day, the fish is fried.
That is how false religion often operates.
People see temporary outcomes and mistake them for divine endorsement.
They confuse spectacle for truth.
They confuse transactions for transformation.
Virtue Cannot Be Replaced by Ritual
Anointing oil cannot replace virtue.
Church attendance cannot replace virtue.
Religious theatrics cannot replace virtue.
The antonym of iniquity is virtue.
That is important to understand.
Many people reduce Christianity to:
“Just don’t go to hell.”
But the Gospel is not merely about avoiding punishment.
It is about becoming transformed.
It is about becoming virtuous.
And contrary to modern preaching, virtue matters immensely.
Read the Parable of the Banquet.
A man made it into the banquet hall, yet he was cast out because he wore the wrong garment.
By the illumination of the Holy Spirit, I increasingly understand that garment to represent the absence of virtue.
Not noise.
Not charisma.
Not prosperity.
Not church branding.
Virtue.
Sierra Leone, Drugs, and the Machinery of Despair
The gentleman I met was from Sierra Leone.
He had returned only six weeks earlier.
And he told me something devastating.
“Youth are dying on the streets,” he said.
I asked why.
“Drugs.”
He mentioned the name of one particular drug. I cannot fully remember it now, only that it began with the letter “C.”
But what struck me was not merely the drug itself.
It was why the young people were taking it.
Not pleasure.
Not excitement.
Hunger.
Hopelessness.
He explained that many take the drug because it suppresses hunger long enough for them to endure another day.
And eventually, despair reaches a point where the soul simply says:
“I might as well die.”
Think about that.
A continent rich in diamonds, oil, gas, gold, talent, and youth, yet its children numb themselves chemically because reality itself has become unbearable.
The Culture of Death
This goes beyond one preacher.
Beyond one politician.
Beyond one country.
It is systemic.
We operate what I have repeatedly called:
A culture of death.
Not because Nigeria is dead.
Nigeria is not dead.
Africa is not dead.
Our people are not dead.
But the culture we normalize is deeply diseased.
A culture where governments drown citizens in hopelessness.
A culture where institutions fail repeatedly without shame.
A culture where religion increasingly substitutes spectacle for moral formation.
A culture where prosperity preaching produces consumers instead of builders.
A culture where people are taught:
“Give money, pour oil on your head, shout louder, claim breakthrough…”
…while remaining morally undisciplined, economically unproductive, civically weak, and spiritually malformed.
The Failure of the False Teachers
And this is why the guild of false teachers bears enormous responsibility.
They failed to build a people capable of building a nation.
Instead, they built dependency.
Emotionalism.
Superstition.
Religious consumerism.
The nation collapses because the people themselves were never morally constructed.
A civilization cannot rise above the character of the people who compose it.
And no amount of anointing oil can substitute for integrity, discipline, competence, courage, restraint, mercy, and virtue.
These are the true building blocks of civilization.
Final Thoughts
I could go on and on.
But perhaps this is enough for now.
I invite you to read the essays on my blog and continue the journey there.
Because what we are witnessing across much of Africa is not merely political failure.
It is moral failure.
Civilizational failure.
A slow normalization of despair.
And until we confront the culture itself, no election, no slogan, no preacher, and no miracle crusade will save us.
#OldManInTheMolue
#MyFrancisEssays
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