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The National Hajj Commission (NAHCON) was in the news since last week; it is still in the news as I write. Sadly, it is not for a good reason. The pilgrimage regulatory agency was dragged into the eye of the storm for a very bad reason (a huge amount of money in the Commission goes down the drain). This NAHCON saga serves as a stark reminder of the harm that religion, exploited by some charlatans, has inflicted on Nigeria’s progress.
Let me be clear, this article is not about NAHCON as an agency per se. It is about some bad eggs who intend to tarnish the Commission with a brush of disgrace. On a happy note, the Commission seems to have some self-correcting internal mechanisms that do not allow malfeasance from going unpunished.
The recently sacked Chairman of the Commission, Jalal Arabi, appears to be one of the bad eggs. His sacking seems to have gained wide support except for some sympathizers and few clerics (ulama) who passionately defended him because they felt he was being witch-hunted. While it is common to see lawyers defending criminals and looters, it is disappointingly condescending to see clerics doing such a dirty job in the name of religion. I understand there is always ethnic solidarity in Nigeria. This explains why a cleric from Gombe State took it upon himself to make sure that Jalal Arabi, also from Gombe, gets a clean bill—despite the weighty allegations. He naively preempted the outcome of the investigation and issued a clean bill. Commonsense demands reservation and circumspection from Jalal clerical warriors (not bigoted reaction) till the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) concludes its investigation. But because it has become the norm in Nigeria for looters to be defended by their beneficiaries or sympathizers, we see some clerics crying wolf. It was said that Jalal Arabi commendably coordinated Nigerian pilgrims and received many merit awards for his excellent performance for the 2024 pilgrimage by the Saudi Arabian government. To honour Jalal Arabi, we were told that the door of Ka’aba was opened for him to observe some units of prayer. Like a village illiterate, one cleric who was particularly impressed by that gesture concluded that Jalal Arabi must be a righteous man who is pleased by God to be so honored. I wonder how a cleric who has supposedly acquired a wealth of knowledge about Islam exhibits such traits of ignorance. How does having the privilege to enter the Ka’aba make a person righteous? If it is true that Jalal Arabi was privileged to enter the Ka’aba, is it not shameful that he came out of the Sacred House only to become a confirmed money launderer? It means he was not awed by the serenity of the interior of the Sacred Cube (Ka’aba) when he entered it. If he had been awed, that should have transformed him into an upright man forever.
I, for one, do not take many of these ulama seriously each time they weigh in on national issues or politics which I strongly believe they do not fully understand. Listening to some of their strong points in support of Jalal Arabi could make one wrongly conclude that investing efforts and resources in Islamic scholarship is a waste of time. Don’t get me wrong, investing in Islamic scholarship is virtuous. However, when clerics become unofficial spokespersons for politicians and government officials, they distort the acquired knowledge and start seeing black as white like charlatans. So what is the use of such a scholarship?
One should be disturbed that clerics, of all people, are defending corruption. A cleric compared what Jalal Arabi did to like pouring a teaspoon of dirt into a full bucket of clean water. This cleric argued that the hajj fund embezzled by Jalal Arabi pales into insignificance in comparison to his excellent performance in the recently concluded Hajj. If all clerics think like this and the masses were to look up to them as religious leaders for spiritual guidance, we are probably in a big trouble in the next World.
President Tinubu did not waste time to show Jalal Arabi the exit door. Kudos to him. But tongues are wagging at EFCC. The corruption fighting agency is accused of being selective. Why Jalal Arabi? Is he the only corrupt government appointee? Why is only NAHCON in the storm? Why not NNPCL? Why not this; and why not that? If I may add, why not Senate President, Godswin Akpabio, who many see as wearing a huge badge of corruption?
Though we might praise President Tinubu each time he acts like someone who forwns at corruption, no one should be hoodwinked into thinking his government is against corruption. If someone is corrupt and nailed, it is possible they are politically worthless. In other words, such person is not considered a political asset to the president. I can give a long list of those within the current Èmi lo kàn government who should ideally be sweating in EFCC’s custody or languishing in our various prisons. But because they are political assets especially towards achieving President Tinubu’s 2027 presidency, no harm shall touch them and the EFCC can always look the other way.
Finally, my plea to our clerics: stop using religion as cover for corrupt individuals. It is nauseating.
Abdulkadir Salaudeen
salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com
