HAJJ AND THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT:
TOWARDS A CLEAR AND SUSTAINABLE POLICY ON HAJJ-4

[ Preamble ]    [Hajj in West African History]   [Hajj and European Imperialism ]    [Hajj Policy in Independent Nigeria ]   [Towards a Clear and Sustainable Policy ]    [Concluding Remarks & References ]  Hajj Policy in Independent Nigeria Until 1953 not much appear to have been done, out going colonial administration had no cause to bother much about hajj and the incoming independent government was not quite on the ground yet. Alhaji Abubakar Imam appeared to have started it all, for during the Budget Session of the House of Representatives in Lagos, early in 1953, he "tabled a motion for the establishment of a ‘Nigeria Office’ in Jeddah to cater for the welfare of Nigerian pilgrims going to Saudi Arabia every year."(17) The motion was adopted with minor amendments and he planned to make the pilgrimage that same year to be able to report back in detail what was required to be done. He immediately received a letter from Mr. Bruce Greatbatch, the Permanent Secretary in the office of the Minister of Local Government and Community Development, who was then M. Ahmadu Rabah, the Sardauna of Sokoto. The letter informed him of one Haruna Dan Kassim of Kano who then wanted to build a hostel for Nigerian pilgrims in Jeddah and requested him to clarify further his motion in the light of this effort of Dan Kassim. In his clarification he suggested that his report should be awaited. He obtained permission and made the hajj and wrote a detailed report on the problems and what needed to be done.(18) The thrusts of Alhaji Abubakar Imam’s report was that it was necessary that every year a pilgrim commissioner be officially appointed to accompany Nigerian pilgrims and lead them throughout the period of hajj. He quickly gave the qualification and added that this was not a full time job but the a three month job only. He then suggested the necessity for what he called dispensary attendant, what we today call the medical corps, giving a list of some of the most common medical complaints there. He then raised the issue of accommodation and the issue of royalties and foreign exchange procedures. He further suggested the creation of a kind of foundation for the assistance of pilgrims to which Muslims will make contributions on a continuos basis. This report was well received and A. Abubakar Imam did not hide his happiness, in his words, "What made me happy about the report I submitted on that years pilgrimage was that all the suggestions or recommendations in the report were accepted and implemented. Not a single one was left out. Alhaji Sir, Ahmadu Bello, Sardauna of Sokoto, on becoming Premier in 1954 also became the pilgrims leader every year until his death in 1966."(19) After 1966, the hajj, like many other institutions lost that unique leadership, concern and selflessness of the Sardauna, and started to go down the drain. The private agents started to have a field day, taking pilgrims money as they pleased and doing all manners of fraud and prompting cries for change. Admittedly there was a rapid increase in the volume of pilgrims during this period, but for every increase in volume there appeared to have been a coressponding increase in fraud and inefficiency which kept growing unchallenged. In 1975 the government of the day interfered, abolished the private agents and created the Nigeria Pilgrim Board, giving them the sole powers of organising the pilgrimage. In the decree that established it, wide duties were assigned to the Board, under section 4. The opening paragraph says, "The board shall in the course of a pilgrimage render all reasonable assistance which pilgrims may require in matters touching or concerning health, immigration, foreign exchange, .... and it shall be the duty of the board to seek and obtain advice on standards (religious or of health) and other matters appropriate to pilgrimages as the board considers necessary, and to establish, or set up and maintain - (a) a library of books .... (b) a continuing campaign, educative as well as religious ...."(20) This by any standards are very wide powers and could allow the board to address all issues associated with the hajj. It had the immediate effect of sanitising the operations from the pollution which the private agents had wrought. But before long, the new board was facing numerous problems. First there was the bureaucracy and then the proverbial inefficiency of the Nigeria Airways. It was however during the so called second republic that the board became literally crippled. From 1979, the Board became embroiled in to the dirty politics of second republic, engulfed by corruption, weighed down by patronage, wastage and inefficiency, unable to cope with the increasing number of pilgrims, the board was brought to its knees. This seemed to have reached a pick in 1983 when the government then attempted to shift hajj operations for presidential elections. In August that year, largely as a response of the public outcry the Islamic Trust of Nigeria in collaboration with the NPB, organised a National conference on hajj in Zaria. The communiqué issued at the end of this conference clearly indicates the major problems. The first three points of this communiqué called for an absolute autonomy of the NPB from any ministerial control, deplores in the strongest terms the politicisation of and stark corruption in hajj operations and urged that officials from the Amirul hajj down to welfare agents should be chosen on the basis of Islamic merit and not nepotism, political patronage or other personal selfish reasons.(21) The problems the NPB faced were not, however, the only problems, there were those which the creation of the board triggered. Christians, or at least the few who spoke on their behalf, felt that the creation of the Board was some kind of undeserved favour done to Muslims, even as the 1975 decree was signed by one their own. This feeling was immediately fuelled by the press who in their characteristic sensationalism continued to blow the whole thing out of proportion in order to intimidate the government. It was continuously portrayed that too much of the precious foreign exchange was being spent on a pilgrimage whose contribution to national development they could not comprehend. The government succumbed to the intimidation and decided to cut the Basic Travelling Allowance of pilgrims. This was done even as "in 1978, when the number was at one of its peaks, the total expense for pilgrims, as contained in Central Bank report, was 41.8 million Naira, only 29.8% of the total expenses on travelling and 2.8% of the total expense of Nigeria’s service account for that year."(22) The campaign did not stop there, for the spokesmen of the Christians proceeded to demand their own share of the board and literally manufactured a Christian pilgrimage. This presented a problem not only for the government but even for Christian theology. For as Dr. Yusuf Turaki, then Vice Principal of ECWA Theological seminary Jos, had occasion to write, "The lack of a clear and definite concept of Christian pilgrimage poses many theological questions: should Christian pilgrimage be defined and understood in terms of Christian scriptures and tradition, or in terms of Islamic scriptures and tradition? Is it necessary for Christians to go on pilgrimage?"(23) Despite the eminent confusion and uncertainty, the campaign for Christian pilgrimage went on and the government, true to type, yielded, and Christian pilgrimage gatecrashed into the board. In 1989 another decree was issued to replace the 1975 (as amended in 1986). This was a major departure from the previous one. It was radically different in two major respects: first the monopoly given to Nigerian Airways as the sole carrier was removed leaving the Commission free to appoint any airline it deems to be in the best interest of the pilgrims; second and far more important it gave the Commission the power "to initiate and establish a Hajj Savings Scheme to be managed under a fund established for this purpose in an interest free bank to be owned or sponsored by the Commission."(24) This idea of a hajj Saving Scheme and interest free bank may have been borrowed from a similar scheme in Malaysia, Tabung Hajj. In Malaysia at least, this has proved to a great success and it shows the willingness of the Nigerian government to take bold steps to improve on hajj operations. But since this decree was signed, seven years ago, nothing has been heard of the commission. Hajj operations during these seven year have been between the devil and the deep blue sea, the responsibility itself has been shifting, very much like the sand dunes of the desert, from ministry of external affairs, to the presidency, then the task force and only God knows where next. But what every body knows is that the operations have been deteriorating with every passing year and Hajj 96 has been undoubtedly the worst and the most humiliating. The conduct of both the officials, including the ulama, and the press has shaken the Muslim public and left a deep scar in the psyche of the pilgrims. Why therefore, has the 1989 decree fail to take off seven years after it had been signed? Is it the bureaucracy again? Did the government change its mind after signing the decree? What exactly is the Task Force suppose to do and for how long is it meant to operate? Is the present government coming out with another decree? No one seems to know the answers to these questions, but government’s silence and inaction has quite naturally fuelled speculations, some quite wild. Decrees, as we have seen, do not in themselves solve problems. What does the magic is the will to act, firmness and consistency. These appear to have been lacking. Previous bodies and institutions as well as ad-hoc looking arrangements like Task Forces, have all failed one after the other. Their inability to deliver and eventual failure has a lot to do with the absence of proper autonomy, dearth of probity and lack of continuity.