‘Govt should keep off Hajj affairs’

The Nigeria Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) has called on the Federal Government to keep off Hajj affairs and hand over the affair to an Islamic body to manage. Secretary of NSCIA and former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, Professor Ishaq Oloyede made the call during an interview with Eko Trust, where […]

The Nigeria Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) has called on the Federal Government to keep off Hajj affairs and hand over the affair to an Islamic body to manage.
Secretary of NSCIA and former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, Professor Ishaq Oloyede made the call during an interview with Eko Trust, where he noted that the involvement of government in Hajj affairs was doing more harm than good.
“For me and the NSCIA, the involvement of government in Hajj matters is not helpful. We believe that the involvement of government beyond consular services and provision of legal framework is unnecessary. What government should do, is to provide the state support; they should leave Hajj matters to religious bodies to organise on their own,” Oloyede said.
He added that Islam was not faring better by the involvement of government in Hajj but rather the involvement had become a liability to Islam.
“We have seen countries all over the world, which have used the medium of Hajj to develop Islam within their jurisdictions. We have many models, countries such as Britain and Malaysia. What is happening in our country is that everybody thinks that Hajj is a free-for-all. Indeed, the nation is not benefiting as it ought to be from hajj.
“Many countries seize the opportunity of the Hajj to promote trade and development of their countries by exporting certain things and even importing certain things or even signing agreements with other bodies for the development of their countries. That is not the case with Nigeria. It appears that everybody thinks Hajj is about courting government patronage and just doing whatever you like,” he said.
Oloyede also noted that many people have the wrong impression that government spends money on Hajj, by sending people on pilgrimage.
“If government sends people on Hajj, government knows the reason, definitely not for the development of Islam, but maybe as a bribe for doing one thing or the other. You know the quality of Muslim who takes bribe. He is not serving the cause of Islam. The position of NSCIA is clear. Government should not be involved in the running of pilgrimage,” he stated.

Oloyede also disclosed that the NSCIA has set up a committee to suggest ways of persuading the government to keep away from Hajj matters. “This is necessary so that if Christians want to go on pilgrimage and they want government to fund it, let it be their own. For Muslims, we don’t want the involvement of government beyond consular services, because government involvement in the Hajj operations is more of liability to Islam than of any benefit,” he posited.