How the rich, poor contribute to Zakat disbursement problem in Nigeria – Shuaib

Daily Trust: The problem of zakat is not peculiar to Nigeria but global, how is Nigeria keying into Muslim world efforts at tackling this challenge? Imam Shuaib: I can say that Nigeria is already a member of the Global Zakat Union and also a member of the World Zakat Forum. These are the two global […]

Daily Trust: The problem of zakat is not peculiar to Nigeria but global, how is Nigeria keying into Muslim world efforts at tackling this challenge?

Imam Shuaib: I can say that Nigeria is already a member of the Global Zakat Union and also a member of the World Zakat Forum. These are the two global institutions that are overseeing the administration of zakat and enlightenment, collection and distribution.

The Global Zakat Union has its headquarters in Khartoum Sudan and currently have over 31 countries including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan Morocco, Nigeria, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Africa and United Kingdom among others are members.

The World Zakat Forum has its headquarters in Indonesia and in all these institutions we have Nigerians occupying topmost positions.

In Nigeria, there have been concerted efforts over the years to see how we replicate what we have on the global scene. This was why in 2014 and this year under the auspices of the Sokoto State Zakat Commission with the support of the Sultan of Sokoto Alhaji Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar III, we organised the first Zakat seminar where organisations, NGOs, commission and others in Sokoto State exchanged notes on how we can raise the bar of zakat as an institution and a means of poverty eradication in Nigeria.

Further to that early this year, we have the second conference of this organisation with a larger participation to produce a document that would enable the Sultan put in place the National zakat body that would be overseeing the activities of zakat in Nigeria.

On our own, Jaiz Zakat and Waqf Trust Fund was established in 2015 and become fully operational in June 2016. We are out to promote the zakat institution and massive enlightenment especially among the Muslims who are economically better off on the need for them to key into this Islamic Finance instrument which is a means of poverty alleviation and eradication and also to empower the Muslims population to be self-reliant and also attain financial independence.

We hit the ground running when we started, last year we organised 11 zakat distributions across the north-east, north-central, south-south and south-east. In the north-east we distributed N12m in Borno State, in Yobe and Adamawa states we disbursed N11m each to over 800 zakat beneficiaries.

We covered Rivers, Bayelsa and Cross River state, while in south-east we covered Enugu, Ebonyi, Abia and Imo states. We were able to cover these areas within two months with money collected from individual Nigerian Muslims that patronise us.  

However there are lots of rooms for improvement because what we have done for the Muslims is a tip of the iceberg. 

Despite the zakat being the third pillar of Islam, why do you think it is still not where it supposed to be among the wealthy Muslims?

Number one, from our research it is basically ignorance. Many Muslims do not understand the principles and technicalities involved in zakat. This can be attributed to our forebears of Islam, May Allah reward them for their efforts. But their best was not enough to meet the global standard.

When we were young our parents used to distribute N1000, N200 to some needy and saying, this is the zakat of so, so and so. This is one aspect of Islamic Finance called sadaqah (charity or donation). Zakat is meant to be a means of liberating someone from poverty and be enough to sustain someone for a whole year. This is where we derive the nisab (value or measurement on wealth) of zakat.

Those administering it then do not understand the principle and administration of zakat, those giving do not understand too that if you give less than the nisab, what you have done is charity.

There are other conditions including the specific beneficiaries as stipulated by Allah.

This is why Muslims are not benefiting from this veritable Islamic Finance of poverty eradication.

Also, this looks like tax and many do not want to pay tax thus many wealthy Muslims do not want to pay zakat. There are also not enough experts in zakat administration. Many who administer zakat today are not experts thus creating more problems.

Also on the part of the needy, many of them do not know that there are many organisations collecting and administering zakat, they are suffering from ignorance, and they are also not willing to abide by the rule of administration of zakat. Some of them believe they should just be given the zakat without proper documentation, while some got to sister organisations to collect zakat multiple times.