Nigerian
President, Muhammadu Buhari, is at it again. Last year, when he pledged
to stop state sponsorship of pilgrimages, some people were skeptical
about Buhari’s intentions. They doubted if he would, given his religious
track record, make good his promise.
On the other hand, many people
applauded the move and thought that Buhari had truly become a ‘converted
democrat’. But they were mistaken. The Nigerian president has proved
the skeptics right and just as he did in the case of some election
campaign promises; he has backtracked on the pledge to lead a government
that does not fund religious pilgrimages.
In fact since he became the president,
Buhari has consistently violated Article 10 of the Nigerian constitution
by merging and meshing mosque and state. He has gone about his
presidency privileging Islam in his activities at Aso Rock and
officially discriminating against non-Muslims and non-believers in the
country. Contrary to his statement in the inaugural address, that he
belonged to everybody and he belonged to nobody, Buhari has, in the last
12 months made it clear to all Nigerians whom he belonged to – the
religious body particularly the Islamic body. This is not to say that
Buhari as a muslim should not practice his religion, Islam. No, not at
all. There is a clear difference between the Nigerian president
practicing his faith and the Nigerian president using the state
mechanism to fund and further his faith. Buhari is doing the latter not
the former.
I mean, how else does one explain many
of Buhari’s unilateral decisions to use state resources to fund and
subsidize religious activities particularly Islamic programs and events
even when his government says the country is broke and has no money to
pay salaries, execute capital projects or put in place programs that
create jobs and alleviate poverty in the country. Though it has been
confirmed that Nigeria is in recession and the economy may not
experience any meaningful growth for some time, Buhari went about
sponsoring breakfast during the Ramadan at the expense of the state. In
fact he used the Ramadan period to feast his political and Islamic
friends and associates while most Nigerians were languishing in hunger
and reeling under the weight of Buhari inflicted recession.
In the past few months the country has witnessed the revival of
activities at the Aso Rock mosque, the Islamic counterpart of the Aso
Rock chapel and this religious structure is maintained at the state
expense under the watch of a president who pledged to be frugal in using
state resources.
But nothing is more troubling than the
recent directive to CBN to subsidize the costs of Hajj. This directive
is worrisome because as part of his fight against corruption, Buhari has
been trying to recover funds that were ‘stolen’ and used to fund OTHER
political campaign activities, but he has kept mute on state monies that
were apparently used to sponsor religious pilgrimages, construct
mosques, pay Imams, financially reward Christians who converted to
Islam, feed Muslims during the month of Ramadan etc. Why is Buhari not
interested in recovering these stolen funds? Why is he not extending his
fight against corruption to investigating state funds that were used to
finance HIS own religious activities?
Well the reason is not far fetched.
Buhari is part of the same religious business. He is an unconverted
Islamic theocrat. The Nigerian president subscribes to mixing religion
and politics and to using religion particularly Islam for political ends
and using politics for Islamic religious ends. He is not backing down
no matter what. He is not relenting in using his position to please
Allah and to further the cause of Islam so that he would be reward in
the hereafter.
How else does one make sense of his
recent directive to the Nigerian Central Bank to sell dollars to Muslims
who are going on Hajj this year at 197 for a dollar at a time Nigerians
are going through serious economic and financial difficulties. Buhari
has consistently blamed the government of Goodluck Jonathan for wasting
state resources, yet he is giving state subsidy to Nigerians going on
religious tours and literally contributing to the economy of Saudi
Arabia. Is that not wasteful of the state resources? How does
subsidizing 2016 add value to the country’s economy? How does it help
get the country out of its current recession?
Look, based on this directive, each Muslim pilgrim gets up to a
thousand dollars at this rate and banks have been told to charge no
interests for this transaction. It was in June that the Nigerian Central
Bank decided to unpeg the naira and the parallel market value of naira
now is about 400 naira to a dollar. Going by that calculation, the
Buhari government is giving a hundred percent subsidy to tens of
thousands of 2016 Hajj pilgrims from Nigeria. But there is more to this
subsidy.
Indirectly, Buhari is encouraging Hajj
pilgrimage, undermining the separation of mosque and state by literally
using the state machinery to promote Islam. Particularly Buhari is
creating an avenue to fritter away state funds because in the coming
days and weeks, Hajj would become another scheme for acquiring cheap
dollars from banks and then selling at a hundred percent profit at the
parallel market using the Muslim connections. Sai Buhari, Amīr
al-Mu’minīn
Yes, Buhari has made going to Hajj a
lucrative business. He has made being a Muslim financially rewarding.
Literally, President Buhari is fiddling religiously, while the country
burns. This is annoying because those who used state funds to fund their
elections and party campaign activities have been deemed corrupt and
are being prosecuted. And now Buhari has, while fighting a ‘corrupt’
practice on one hand, aided and abetted corruption on the other. Buhari
has made a corruption scheme out of 2016 Hajj. Performance of Hajj is
and should the private business of muslims who can afford it without any
government interference, without state subsidy.
Yes, Buhari should keep mosque and state separate.
Leo Igwe is a human rights
activist and the founder of the Nigerian Humanist Movement. He was the
Western and Southern African representative to IHEU, the International
Humanist and Ethical Union. He can be reached by email HERE.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
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