Banditry and Insecurity: Why Are Our Prayers Not Answered?
Northern Nigeria is one of the most religious places on earth. We pray for everything. The first thing we do when we wake is to pray. The last thing we do before sleep is to pray. We pray before eating. We pray after eating. We pray when entering the toilet and when leaving the toilet. We have a specific prayer for putting on new clothes, for traveling, for meeting someone, for entering the market, for almost every small act of daily life. Our mosques are filled five times a day. Our Qur’anic schools overflow with children memorizing verses. During Ramadan, the streets empty for hours as people stand in night prayer. We send millions to Hajj every year. We give Zakat. We fast. We call on Allah in every crisis, and we live in a permanent crisis of banditry and insecurity. So the question that haunts every honest heart in the North is this: why are our prayers not answered?
The easy answer is to blame God. But the hard answer is that we have separated prayer from practice. We have turned religion into ritual while abandoning its soul. Islam teaches that prayer must prevent shameful and unjust deeds. The Qur’an is clear: indeed, prayer prohibits immorality and wrongdoing. Yet we pray five times daily inside mosques where new shoes are stolen. The same man who just prostrated will steal the phone of the man beside him. The same worshipper who called upon Allah’s mercy will cheat his customer after leaving the mosque. We have built a system where prayer happens but honesty does not. That is not Islam. That is hypocrisy.
Consider the theft inside our places of worship. You cannot enter a busy mosque in Kano or Kaduna with a new pair of shoes and expect to find them when you come out. The poor steal from the poor inside the house of Allah. And the rich sit quietly because their shoes are not the ones being taken. The same poor who come to pray also come to steal phones from the shoe racks. They justify it by their hunger. But hunger did not make the Prophet’s companions steal. Hunger drove them to work, to patience, to trust in Allah. We have replaced trust with theft and called it survival.
Then look at our homes. Neighbors sleep with neighbors’ wives. Fornication and adultery are common, hidden only from public view but known to everyone in private. The same man who prays at dawn returns home to betray his neighbor before noon. The same woman who fasts all day schemes to meet another woman’s husband by night. We have turned Islam into a costume worn for public display and discarded in private darkness. The Prophet said that a fornicator is not a believer at the moment of fornication. Yet we have normalized sin while maintaining the appearance of piety.
Our rich are worse. They watch the poor starve while spending fortunes on weddings, on luxury cars, on second and third trips to Mecca. They build mansions with gold-plated gates while children beg for rice in the streets. Zakat is supposed to be taken from the rich and given to the poor. Instead, the rich give a calculated minimum to ease their conscience while hoarding the rest. The Prophet warned that a man who sleeps full while his neighbor sleeps hungry is not a believer. But our wealthy businessmen and politicians sleep very full every night. They fly to London for medical treatment while the poor die in dilapidated clinics. They donate a few bags of rice during elections and call themselves philanthropists.
Most damning of all are our scholars. Some of the very men we call Malam, Sheikh, and Ustaz prepare charms for bandits and terrorists. They write verses on pieces of paper, tie them around the arms of killers, and tell them the bullets will not touch them. They take money from armed groups and bless their atrocities in the name of Allah. These same scholars sit in mosques on Friday and preach against alcohol and music while their pockets are filled with blood money. The Prophet said the worst of scholars are those who sell religion for worldly gain. We have elevated those worst scholars to positions of honor.
And what of our politicians? They steal mandates. They rig elections. They fail to defend citizens when bandits attack. They take salaries meant for security and divert them to private accounts. Then they go to Hajj and come back with the title Alhaji, expecting people to respect them as pious men. We pray for these politicians during Friday sermons. We ask Allah to guide them while they destroy us. We do not stand up and demand justice because we are told to obey the ruler even if he is unjust. That teaching has been twisted into a weapon to keep us silent.
We have failed to educate our poor. Real education teaches critical thinking, honesty, and courage. Instead, we have produced miseducation. Our children memorize the Qur’an without understanding its commands for justice. Our university graduates can recite theories but cannot detect corruption or demand accountability. The Almajiri system sends millions of boys onto the streets to beg instead of to learn. The elite send their own children to private schools abroad while preaching patience to the poor. The first word of the Qur’an was Iqra, read. But a corrupt system fears reading because reading leads to questioning. And questioning would bring down the whole rotten structure.
So where does this leave us? Are we simply abandoned? No. These current challenges are a test from Allah. The Qur’an makes clear that this life is a trial. We are tested through hardship and through ease, through poverty and through wealth, through security and through fear. The banditry that plagues our villages, the kidnappings that empty our pockets, the fear that locks our doors at nightfall, all of these are tests. Will we turn back to Allah honestly? Or will we cling to our rituals while our hearts remain hard and our hands remain dirty? The test is not whether we can pray. The test is whether our prayer changes us.
And here is the truth that no scholar will tell you from a paid pulpit: our prayers will never be answered until we change our ways. The Qur’an states this as an unbreakable divine law. Allah says: Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves. This is not a suggestion. It is a promise and a threat. As long as we steal inside mosques, Allah will not remove the thieves from our roads. As long as we commit adultery in secret, Allah will not protect our families from disgrace. As long as our rich hoard their wealth while the poor starve, Allah will not open the gates of provision. As long as our scholars bless bandits, Allah will not remove bandits from our lands. As long as we vote for corrupt politicians and then pray for them, Allah will leave us under their oppression. Change must begin inside us. Then, and only then, will Allah change our condition.
The solutions are not hidden. They are written clearly in the Book we claim to revere. Allah commands us to establish prayer that actually prohibits immorality and wrongdoing. If your prayer does not stop you from cheating, stealing, fornicating, or oppressing, then your prayer is not genuine. The righteous predecessors said that if your prayer does not prevent you from evil, then your prayer only increases you in distance from Allah. We must pray as if Allah is watching, not as a routine to complete and forget.
Allah also commands us to stand firmly in justice, even against ourselves or our parents and relatives. Do not let the rich man’s wealth or the poor man’s poverty stop you from speaking the truth. And do not let hatred of bandits or any other group prevent you from being just. Justice is closest to righteousness. We must demand justice from our rulers. We must hold our scholars accountable. We must testify truthfully even when it costs us. Silence in the face of injustice is not piety. It is complicity.
And Allah commands us concerning our wealth. The Prophet said that any owner of gold or silver who does not give its due right will face a painful punishment. The due right is Zakat, but Zakat is the minimum, not the maximum. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for the orphan, these are not optional charities. They are obligations that the rich have abandoned. The wealthy of Northern Nigeria must open their purses. Not with calculated minimums to ease guilty consciences, but with genuine sacrifice. Build schools, not wedding halls. Feed the poor, not politicians. Secure the vulnerable, not bank accounts in Dubai.
Finally, we must return to sincere repentance from all major sins. The prayer does wipe away sins, but scholars have explained that this applies only to minor sins. Grave major sins such as theft, adultery, murder, corruption, and sorcery, which includes the preparation of charms, cannot be wiped out except by sincere repentance. Repentance means stopping the sin immediately, regretting it deeply, resolving never to return to it, and returning any wronged rights to their owners. A bandit who wants his prayers answered must first lay down his weapon. A scholar who makes charms must first burn his amulets. A politician who stole must first return what he took. A rich man who hoarded must first feed the hungry. Without this, our prayers are empty vessels.
The heavens are not silent because Allah is deaf. The heavens are silent because we have not yet meant what we say. The test continues. The bandits remain. The insecurity persists. And the question hangs over us like a sword: when will we finally change what is in ourselves? Only then will Allah change our condition. Only then will our prayers be answered.
