Good Friday is, for Christians, a day of commemoration of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, a useful reminder of the suffering, crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ. Since the early years of Christianity, Jesus death has been interpreted by his followers as a sacrifice of obedience offered to redeem humanity disobedient to the will of the Creator. Indeed, at this point in history, the virtue of sacrifice, evoked by the narrative of the death of Jesus on the cross, speaks to our land Nigeria with extraordinary forcefulness. It is a story of a Jesus who was willing to make himself a sacrifice for the sake of humanity.

On the occasion of every religious feast, there is in Nigeria a tradition whereby political leaders, in their goodwill messages, evoke one virtue or the other that they believe Nigerians must acquire and practice. There is nothing to suggest otherwise this season. Nigerians will experience a deluge of admonitions.

The commemoration of the suffering and death of Christ challenges the world in general, and Christians in particular, to understand his death not just as a past event, but also, as a present event. The suffering and death of Jesus continue to call attention to the massive suffering of millions of victims in our world. In Nigeria, it points to the suffering of millions of our compatriots. Needless wars, past and present, oppression of the weak by the powerful, injustice to the innocent”these point to the fact that the suffering and death of Christ, an event that took place more than 2,000 years ago, is a commentary on our present.

At this point in our history, Nigerians are passing through very trying times. We live in a situation of heightened insecurity that has led to the abduction of hundreds of our fellow citizens from their homes, places of worship, farms and schools. We witness the deaths of thousands in the hands of terrorists, and the attendant sad phenomenon of internally displaced persons, refugees in their homelands.

We live at a time of mind-boggling infrastructural decay across the length and breadth of our vast country, an infrastructural decay eminently exemplified in recurrent power outages and roads left unfixed. Insecurity scares investors away. The flight of investors is a flight of investment. A flight of investment is a flight of productivity, gainful employment and prosperity. Insecurity exacerbates an unprecedented economic crisis with which Nigerians have to contend. There is hunger in the land. And there is anger too. Quality of life is abysmally low.

Amid a multi-faceted crisis, submerged in massive suffering, Nigerians are repeatedly admonished by their leaders to make sacrifices for a better future. But what ought to be an admonition addressed to all is turned into an admonition addressed by those living in comfort to those living in discomfort. Concretely, Nigerians living in discomfort are being admonished by a ruling elite living in comfort to make sacrifices needed for Nigeria to survive.

While sacrifice is a religious virtue, it would be wise to caution against a sadistic admonition that tends to take already victimized citizens for granted. It is particularly worrisome that leaders who admonish Nigerians to make sacrifices would lift no finger to join in making the sacrifice. A wealthy ruling class, an exclusive club of beneficiaries of the wealth of Nigeria, is asking poor citizens to make sacrifices, while the wealth of the land, the peoples money, is used to finance the comfortable lifestyle of their leaders.

It would be a morally reprehensible misrepresentation of religion to demand sacrifice of the poor while there is no sign that the rich are also making sacrifices, and while the budgeting process in the legislative arm of government raises unanswered questions. It would amount to an abuse of religion on the part of those who govern Nigeria to demand that the poor make sacrifices when the retirement benefits of past rulers are bigger than the meagre yet unpaid salaries of many Nigerian workers.

Christianity professes that Jesus is the Son of God in a non-biological but real sense. This is a point on which Christianity and other religious traditions diverge. Nonetheless, whether or not one subscribes to this belief, its significance should not escape our attention. Christianity preaches about the Son of God who did not just call his disciples to make sacrifice but led them by making the ultimate sacrifice.

In the death of Jesus on the cross, a leader laid down his life for the benefit of those he led. In the Christian religion, the sacrificial character of Jesus death has as a consequence the good of humanity. That is in sharp contrast with the kind of leadership that would exploit the led, while admonishing the followers to make sacrifices. In Jesus, the leader sacrificed for the led, the led did not sacrifice for the leader. If then there were to be an admonition to be made regarding sacrifice for Nigeria, it should be directed, first, to the leaders.

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