That is the central argument raised by former Kogi State senator Dino Melaye in a recent interview, in which he challenged the scale of public spending on religious activities and questioned whether a country struggling with poverty, weak infrastructure, poor healthcare, inadequate education, and limited industrial capacity should continue to direct public resources toward religious programmes.
His argument is deliberately provocative. It also touches on a question Nigeria has avoided for decades: what exactly should government fund?
“You cannot have a good economy, a good country, where you have more churches than industries,” Melaye said, describing what he called an unhealthy relationship between religion, government and national development.
He recalled seeing a six-storey building in Ibadan where, by his count, dozens of churches operated within the same structure.
For Melaye, the problem is not the existence of churches, mosques or religious belief. His objection is the diversion of public resources toward religious activities while core responsibilities of government remain severely underfunded.
Religion is personal, he argued. Government is institutional.
That distinction matters.
Nigeria operates a constitutional democracy with a secular government. Citizens are free to practise their faith, but the state has a different responsibility. Government is expected to provide security, infrastructure, healthcare, education, economic opportunities and an environment in which citizens and businesses can prosper.
Yet Nigeria continues to maintain public institutions dedicated to religious pilgrimage and spends public money supporting citizens travelling abroad for religious purposes.
Melaye questioned the logic behind such expenditure.
“If religion is individualistic,” he asked in substance, “why should government spend billions of naira supporting religious activities?”
His argument goes beyond pilgrimage.
He is questioning a broader political culture in which government money is repeatedly directed toward activities with limited economic returns while productive sectors remain starved of investment.
Nigeria needs industries.
It needs factories.
It needs technology companies.
It needs functioning schools.
It needs hospitals.
It needs roads, electricity and reliable transport networks.
It needs small and medium-sized enterprises capable of employing millions of people.
Those investments produce measurable economic value. They create jobs, expand the tax base, increase productivity and build the capacity of citizens to earn sustainable incomes.
Religious expenditure does not produce the same public economic return.
This does not mean religion has no social value. Religious institutions provide education, healthcare, charity and community support across Nigeria. Many churches and mosques also finance projects that government itself has failed to deliver.
The issue is where the boundary should lie.
Private citizens are free to fund religious activities. Religious organisations are free to raise money from their members. Wealthy Nigerians who wish to sponsor pilgrimages are free to do so within the law.
But the question becomes harder to defend when government takes scarce public revenue and assigns it to religious purposes while basic public services remain inadequate.
Nigeria’s fiscal position makes the issue even more difficult to ignore.
Every naira spent by government carries an opportunity cost. Money allocated to pilgrimage is money unavailable for another purpose. Money spent on religious programmes cannot simultaneously finance a classroom, a rural road, a health centre, industrial equipment or technology infrastructure.
The question therefore should not be whether Nigerians should pray.
They should.
The question is whether government should be paying for the prayer trip.
There is another uncomfortable dimension to the debate.
Nigeria has developed an enormous religious economy alongside a weak productive economy. Churches and mosques have multiplied across cities and communities, while manufacturing capacity has declined in several critical sectors.
This creates a dangerous contradiction.
A country cannot pray its way out of unemployment.
It cannot worship its way out of inflation.
It cannot build an industrial economy through religious conferences.
It cannot develop a competitive technology sector through pilgrimages.
And it cannot replace functioning institutions with faith.
Melaye also challenged the argument that criticism of public religious spending amounts to an attack on religion.
That response deserves scrutiny.
Questioning government expenditure is not an attack on Christianity or Islam. Questioning pilgrimage subsidies is not an attack on pilgrims. Questioning religious institutions is not the same as questioning religious faith.
In a democracy, public spending should withstand public scrutiny regardless of who benefits from it.
The same standard should apply to churches, mosques, traditional institutions, political organisations and every other interest group seeking access to public resources.
Melaye’s comparison with international institutions also makes a broader point. He noted that major international organisations such as the United Nations do not depend on religious ceremonies to perform their institutional functions.
The lesson is not that religion is unnecessary.
The lesson is that successful institutions are built around competence, rules, accountability and clearly defined objectives.
Nigeria’s problem is not that its people pray too much.
The deeper problem is that prayer has sometimes been allowed to coexist comfortably with institutional failure.
Political leaders attend religious events. Public officials make religious declarations. Government sponsors pilgrimages. Religious leaders receive political attention.
Yet citizens still struggle to access reliable electricity, quality healthcare, functional schools, safe roads and decent employment.
That contradiction should bother everyone, irrespective of faith.
A government that spends billions sending citizens abroad for pilgrimage while citizens struggle to travel safely from one Nigerian city to another has a priority problem.
A government that finances religious activities while public hospitals lack basic equipment has a priority problem.
A government that sponsors religious programmes while young Nigerians struggle to find productive work has a priority problem.
The answer is not to attack religion.
The answer is to separate personal faith from public expenditure.
Nigeria should build an economy in which citizens have enough income to finance their own religious commitments.
Government should concentrate public resources on creating the conditions that make such independence possible.
That means industrial policy.
It means education.
It means technology.
It means infrastructure.
It means agriculture linked to processing and manufacturing.
It means affordable credit for businesses.
It means reliable electricity.
It means security.
It means institutions capable of enforcing contracts and protecting investment.
The country does not need fewer believers.
It needs fewer excuses.
Faith should remain a personal relationship between citizens and their God. Government should remain accountable to citizens and the Constitution.
Nigeria has spent decades asking God for prosperity while failing to build enough of the institutions and industries required to create it.
Perhaps the harder prayer now is for political leaders willing to change the priorities.
Because a nation cannot consume its way into prosperity, pray its way into industrialisation, or subsidise its way into development.
At some point, the factories must be built, the schools must work, the hospitals must function, and the economy must produce.
That is where the real test of leadership begins.
