By Abdu Labaran Malumfashi.
About 1,400 years ago, the last messenger of Allah, Prophet Muhammadu, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him (SAW) once urged Muslims to hasten to make the journey for the Holy Pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia “before you are prevented”.
It was a simple admonishment, but some of us not smart enough did not figure out how it was coming until NOW.
But the Punch Newspaper solved the problem for us when it published a story indicating that the Federal Government under the leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has halved the cost of Christian Pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the year 2025, for anyone who intends to undertake the journey.
The Punch newspaper quoted the National Secretary of the Christian Pilgrims Board, Bishop Stephen Adegbite as saying that the federal government has slashed by half the amount each Christian pilgrim would pay this year.
According to the newspaper, the government would shoulder the rest of the money for the pilgrimage, which is expected to kick off on September 14, and would last for 10 days at the Imo airport.
BUT, a couple of weeks earlier, the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) announced that N8.6 million was to be deposited by any intending pilgrim to Saudi Arabia for the year 2026.Clearly, we can see that Prophet Muhammadu’s prophecy has, as usual, come to pass on these shores, where the minimum deposit for the annual Hajj pilgrimage is N8.6 million in a country going through extreme poverty, overbearing hunger and severe hardship.
All but a handful top government officials, NASS members, and a wealthy few enjoy living in Nigeria at the moment. The Middle Class is extinct.N8.6 million is only a deposit, because prices of services hardly come down in Nigeria once they are fixed. Where they do, it happens very insignificantly that they may as well not have happened because of their insignificance.
The unequal treatment given to religions by the Tinubu regime is happening during the first term of a leadership that is desperate for a second term. More than half of the followers of the unfavored faith were responsible for the first term electoral success of the president, and the shabby treatment that their faith is getting is their ‘thank you’ for casting your votes for me.
Could it be that the president has clearly seen the writing on the wall that his second term dream is a mirage, which informed his unhealthy treatment of the other faith like ‘a bull in a china shop’.
The president who wants to be re-elected for a second term do not antagonise more than half the electorate in the country and still expects to be re-elected, even if he controls the election umpire in the country.
Someone often wonder whether or not the Northern Muslims are represented at the Executive Council of the country because of the total disregard with which they are treated by the president. If any of them is asked what they were doing when so and so policies against the interest of their region were being formulated and implemented, they would always say that they have objected to them, but because they were over ruled their position was not considered.But that is a lie.
They are always doing what the president wants, as failure to do so would earn them the sack, in their own selfish thinking. It is much better to get the sack for representing your people well, than to be retained at the expense of representing your people well enough.The only business that they have in the North is to shore up support for their boss whose popularity in the area is practically zero. Otherwise, they hardly visit their ‘constituency’.
Many of our representatives in the National Assembly (NASS) appear to be on the phone, or in committee meetings all the time. When they are contacted on phone that is what they tell the caller, or pretend to be speaking on the phone when they are approached for a face to face conversation.These are the type of representatives that represent the North in the federal cabinet and the NASS, which is why the region is short changed all the time. Besides, they have no clue of what took them to Abuja other than to make illegal money for themselves.
The people who ‘elected’ them to give them a good representation at the national level are left to fend for themselves.May God save Nigeria from the Shylocks that take hold of power, and refuse to let go, in the country.
