FOOD FOR THOUGHT!!!!!!

WORD!!!! Babatunde Raji Fashola(Former Governor of lagos State ) I once counted close to 99 churches from one end of ado badore road to the other. "If we pursue our choices with as much conviction as we pursue our faith, we will certainly be a more prosperous society. Let us remember, that at least the two dominant faiths are not original to us. They are inherited. The propagators of the faith have made them personal affairs and not public ones. I have attended meetings in the West and in the Middle East and  not on one occasion have these meetings been started or ended with prayers. Meetings represent public undertakings and places of work and  productive undertakings to deliver prosperity. When those people have worked hard for the week, they go on Fridays and Sundays to their places of worship and their homes to offer prayers,  for God to bless and prosper the work of their hands. Sadly, back home, the head of Governments, heads of ministries, and businesses, devote early mornings at work to prayers with their staff while productive man hours tick away, they do the same at home and on weekends, we socialise. In effect we spend a lot of time praying and socializing. How can this lead us to prosperity? If this is not faith influenced by fear, I do not know what it is. If you visit many construction sites where the Chinese are employed as contractors,  you will find that they work on Sundays, but we who have unemployment challenges, do not often work on Sunday. We have invested a worrisome amount of money in building places of worship compared to what we have in building factories, businesses and schools. This is worrisome compared to the investments I see in businesses and schools that outstrip investment in places of worship in the West and Middle East. Recently, while driving along a road of not more than 5 (FIVE) kilometres in a Nigerian city,  a colleague and I took an unplanned census of building types and this is what we counted: a) 1 laundry outfit for washing and dry cleaning clothes (Job place) b) 3 clinics for healthcare (Job place) c) 2 petrol filling stations (Job place) d) 1 bank branch (Job place) e) 4 shopping outlets (Job place) f) 1 eatery (Job place) g) 10 religious houses (Worship place) As you go around your states and neighbourhoods, I urge you to do a similar count and tell your neighbour what you see. Again I reiterate, I do not criticise worship, but I am challenging you to think through the choices you will make. We will not pray our way out of recession, we will plan, and produce our way back to prosperity and out of recession and you are the freshest, youngest and  most energetic workforce we will have to work with. You are the new batteries to power the engine of growth of our country."