Can Africans ever understand that God never solves issues that they can solve on their own?

On June 19, Robert Kyagulanyi, the head of the National Unity Platform (NUP), wrote a message on Facebook about his new song, Tujune, and inquired where one should turn “when prayers wait much too long to be answered.”

Mr. Kyagulanyi, Uganda’s political phenomenon since launching himself into politics in 2017, must be upset that the dictatorship continues to harass, repress, and punish (even prosecute, unlawfully) individuals doing all in their power to bring about change.

He has realized that some of his party’s MPs are not even devoted to the effort to free Uganda of corrupt leadership — and are benefitting from the exact system they criticize, accepting large sums of money to purchase support.

Social media has been flooded with allegations of NUP MPs receiving Sh40 million apiece from the government and dismissing Mr. Kyagulanyi’s plea to return the money.

Mr. Kyagulanyi’s Facebook statement drew hundreds of responses, as do many of his postings.

“When prayers take too long to be answered, we praise God because we don’t know what surprise he has in store for us,” one commenter called Judith Banduru stated.

She was speaking on behalf of millions of Ugandans and other Africans who really think that God solves issues despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary (and that is assuming he exists).

You can go back in antiquity for centuries and find no proof of God resolving a single issue that man had/had failed to address. I’ll provide many instances, but let me start with Senegal, where Mr. Kyagulanyi just visited.

The NUP leader photographed and tweeted images of the country’s famed slave-trading location, known as the Door of No Return. This is where Africans started their heartbreakingly dehumanizing and terrible journey to slavery.

Slavery was practiced for hundreds of years with God’s knowledge and approval. It was abolished by the people, not by him. According to TIME magazine, Christian slave owners used the Bible, a book millions of people regard as the word of God, to defend slavery.

Descendants of Africans forced into slavery in the United States are still suffering today. Poverty in places like Mississippi is comparable to poverty in Africa. Mississippi, like Africa, is replete with people who think that God can and will solve issues.

For decades, Africa has been the most devout continent, with the greatest number of individuals claiming to communicate with God via prayer. On a daily basis, the people of Africa beg God to aid them, yet their difficulties worsen.

According to the World Bank, half of the nations in Sub-Saharan Africa have poverty rates greater than 35%. Africa is home to the world’s poorest people: Nigeria (79 million), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (60 million), Tanzania (28 million), Ethiopia (26 million), and Madagascar (20 million).

And you have to wonder when Africans will realize that God never solves issues. It is very evident that it is our job to remove the corrupt leadership we now have. Even if we have irrefutable proof that God exists, he will never depose the dictatorship.

The current commanders seized weapons, took some from Kabamba, and began an armed insurrection in which young soldiers fought heavily. This folly was not stopped by God. The leaders — and their wives — address Ugandans in the name of God!