According to the Washington based fact tank, Pew Research Centre report, published in 2019, on nations that pray the least and those that pray the most, between 2008 and 2017, the most prayerful nations in the world per percentage of their population are:

1. Afghanistan, 96 per cent.
2. Nigeria, 95 per cent.
3. Algeria, 88 per cent.
4. Senegal, 88 per cent.
5. Djibouti, 87 per cent.
6. Iran, 87 per cent.
7. Iraq, 87 per cent.
8. Niger, 87 per cent.
9. Indonesia, 84 per cent.

Nigeria overtook Afghanistan the following year as the most prayerful nation in the world.

The least prayerful nations per percentage of their population are:

1. China, 1 per cent.
2. UK, 6 per cent.
3. Switzerland, 8 per cent.
4. Austria, 8 per cent.
5. Czechoslovakia, 9 per cent.
6. Germany, 9 per cent.
7. Estonia, 9 per cent.
8. France, 10 per cent.
9. Denmark, 10 per cent.

The research drew a couple of conclusions and recommendations.

First is that, the most prayerful nations are amongst the poorest in the world, while the least prayerful nations are the most economically reliant. In fact, the prayerful nations are the poverty capitals of the world.

The prayerful nations are replete with armed conflicts and insecurity of lives and property. Their citizens are also amongst the most corrupt in the world. In the 2023 World Justice Project Rule of Law Index, that ranked 142 countries based on their adherence to the rule of law. Nigeria and Afghanistan, which are the most prayerful nations in the world are the worst in obedience to the rules that govern their countries.

The research further concluded that societies that have strong work ethics, abhor vices or effectively sanction them through their laws, will prosper, whether they pray or not. It is not prayer in itself that brings economic prosperity, although sincere prayer can shape the right mindset and create an atmosphere conducive for wealth generation. You also will not want to know the history of things that today’s wealthy nations did to attain their heights. It wasn’t prayer.

So when leaders who are supposed to give you good governance resort to using prayer meetings and religion to calm your nerves and freeze your faculties, don’t expect all of us to perceive it the way you do. It is actually their own strategy of keeping you in bondage. Prayer is good and very necessary for all of us. I pray, and very fervently too. But if you don’t decipher what I am trying to say, I am sorry, I can’t help you.

Yours sincerely,
Citizen Agba Jalingo.