Christian community is a commu-
nity of God, living the life of the
resurrection. It should be a com-
munity of love and peace, a community
inspired by Jesus’ values. It should be a
community witnessing Jesus in their
communities and anywhere they go. It is
a community of shared-love. It is a com-
munity honest to each other and sharing
the same faith and is faith-filled. It should
be a community on the same spiritual
wavelength with each other. They share
each other’s sufferings and they help
each other reduce their burdens. They
do not add more burdens to each oth-
er. Through sharing they grow and dis-
cover where they have made mistakes
in life and they work hard not to make
such mistakes again. A community that
knows each other and understands each
other is an ideal community. But a com-
munity that discriminates or introduces
a divide is a“one kind community” una-
ble to be fixed up. The structure of Nige-
ria is based on falsehood and yields no
democratic dividend. The educational
system in Nigeria is faulty.
When we are sitting in the examination
halls we are given the same questions
but the marking and scoring system is
different depending on where you come
from. After writing an examination, you
may think you did well and expect good
grades but to your amazement the per-
son who wasn’t unable to write anything
would pass and gain admission due to a
lowered cut-off mark allocated to their
part of the country. The cut-off mark
system in our examinations has become
a great political tool of corruption. After
everything, those from the “disadvan-
taged zones” are given top political ap-
pointments while qualified people from
the other parts are denied. Merit is dead
in Nigeria! Where are those who asked
us to vote for them to defend justice?
While do they see glaring injustice and
still keep quiet? The Institution of higher
learning is what one holds on to liberate
him. We learn there to become a vehicle
of knowledge and promoter of justice in
our country. How come after all the learn-
ing, we are dumped because of quota sys-
tem. Not even in the animal world can
such happen.
A community that does not appreci-
ate the gifts in each other and make use
of them for sustainable development
is living in falsehood. A community or
country that is jealous of each other is
not a growing community. A community
that makes use of their differences is an
encouraging community. A community
that causes pain to each other; a schaden-
freudic community without purpose is
not a good one. A gossiping community
is not a community of love; it is a com-
munity inflated with hatred and jealousy
and unable to sort things out easily. It is
a wounded community, lacking love,
peace and justice. The members of such
community are just there as a number.
They cannot experience the love of Christ
in that type of community. Such a com-
munity is not a Eucharistic community.
The Eucharistic community is one who
shares the body of Christ with love.
They have a bond with Jesus and they
abide in God and God in them. They
owe nobody anything other than love
and the love which is of Christ unites
them. They are always ready to extend a
hand of friendship with others who are
not their members, they are hospitable.
When a community does not speak
with one voice it becomes fragmented
and suspicious of each other and that is
the end of such a community. A commu-
nity exists to inspire each other. When a
person lives outside the community, he
breaks the community norms and it is
not likely that he will be a part of that
community, but the community should
find out when a member is no longer a
part of the whole. Good communities
always look for the strayed and bring
them back. This is what happens when
a community cares. A community that
is responsible to each other always looks
for the wounded members. It looks
for those who were once rich but now
poor. They do not neglect any member
because they were once a part of the
whole. A community should be grateful
to each other’s contribution, which leads
to their growth and development.
When a community is service ori-
ented and no one is seeking for his
own interest, the community grows in
bounds without hurts. When a member
of a community has a misplaced prior-
ity and false values it affects the whole
community. Crisis in the community
can emanate from those who do not
have community spirit, and those who
do not want to grow in the community.
A community divided by sin, prejudic-
es, social injustice, hatred, and fear of
each other and not living according to
the norms cannot attract outsiders. Je-
sus was brought up in a community and
lived there before his public ministry. I
wish our country Nigeria can be united
in mind to solve the numerous prob-
lems in areas of lopsided appointments
not based on merit. We cannot continue
in our current arrangement of “Monkey
dey work, Baboon dey chop”
