AMIDST strident complaints of financial insolvency, resulting in the abdication of their primary obligations, states are still making the sponsorship of private individuals on pilgrimages their favourite pastime. Many of them cough up millions, sometimes billions, of naira each year to further this pet project of theirs, despite owing workers many months of salary arrears, just as pensioners continue an endless wait for the payment of their monthly stipends. Many even die before the payments are made.
Usually, those sponsored include politicians, medical officials, clerics and government officials. Others are members of the pilgrims’ board, journalists and friends of the government. Regrettably, this misguided practice, which has endured for years, involves adherents of the two major religions in the country – Christianity and Islam. But it does not only negate the letter of the constitution, which forbids the adoption of a particular religion by the state, it is also an awful misplacement of priorities.
It is a deliberate act of hypocrisy by the governors who use religion to cover up for their failure to meet developmental targets. While a state like Lagos, indubitably the richest by a mile, has stopped spending money on pilgrimage since 2015, Plateau, Adamawa, Gombe, Zamfara, Sokoto, Cross River and Jigawa are among those that have refused to let go. Even states that previously renounced sponsorship of pilgrims are still supporting them under one guise or the other. Some would say they only paid for clerics and medical team, while others would claim it was only state functionaries that were sponsored.
For states that have stopped using public funds to support religious activities, especially sponsorship of pilgrimages, it is easy to see the benefits. For instance, a former Lagos State Commissioner for Home Affairs, Abdulhakeem Abdullateef, stated last year that the state saved N4.5 billion by withdrawing from sponsoring pilgrims to both Saudi Arabia and Israel. The money could be deployed in the repair of roads, hospitals, schools and provision of water and other forms of infrastructure that would be of benefit to all the citizens.
When Kano State promised to back out of pilgrimage sponsorship in 2016, it said the venture had left the state poorer by N3 billion in that year alone. The same state has, however, taken another retrogressive step of establishing Religious Affairs Ministry. Niger State, similarly, claimed to have spent N5.1 billion on Hajj in the five years to 2013. These were copious sums that could have been used to positively affect the lives of the poor citizens of these states. This is why a former Kano State governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso, came out to roundly condemn the practice, claiming that there was nowhere that it was permitted in his religion for public funds to be used to sponsor individuals on pilgrimages. “When we took this decision, many people shouted and even prayed against us. But we have saved money, which we spent on education, transport and health,” he boasted in 2013.
Unfortunately, this practice of forcing the state to carry the burden of religious responsibility of private individuals has always drawn support from unusual sources. For instance, after once renouncing the practice, the former president, Goodluck Jonathan, then embarked on pilgrimage to Israel. His retinue included state governors, personal aides and Christian clerics. He also became an advocate of pilgrimages, condemning states for not sponsoring Christian pilgrims.
In the same vein, Muhammadu Buhari, in the first years of his presidency, ensured that pilgrims got foreign exchange at concessionary exchange rates. This was the case in 2016 when financial institutions were influenced to sell foreign exchange at N197 to a dollar as against the extant flexible rate of about N400 per dollar. In the preceding year, the rate was fixed at N160 per dollar. These are concessions that were not even granted to the private sector that could have used them to create jobs and affect the economy positively. However, the Hajj Commission’s claim that the Federal Government introduced some reforms and stopped concessionary exchange rates, leading to the saving of N80 billion, is encouraging.
Secularity is said to be the best guarantee of freedom of religion. Governors should respect the right of others to believe differently by not spending public funds for the promotion of one or two faiths. Perhaps they need to be reminded once again the position of Section 10 of the Constitution on the place of State and religion. The primary purpose of a government is to guarantee the security and wellbeing of citizens. There is no sense in catering for the religious needs of citizens who cannot afford the basic things of life, such as food, shelter, clothing, education and health. These are things that are taken for granted in other climes where religion and state stay apart. Anyone that wants to live a life of piety should be allowed to do so at his or her own expense; religious should be a private pursuit.
Even in rich countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, people save money on their own to embark on pilgrimages. There is clear evidence that secular countries do better in human development than theocracies. State sponsorship should not be a practice in a country like Nigeria which has some of the world’s poorest Human Development Index. For instance, apart from other awful indices, the country is regarded as the poverty capital of the world. So, what the states as centres of development should be doing now is how to pull people out of poverty, not to use public funds to sponsor pilgrimages.
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