THE Federal Governments recently declared intention to discontinue funding religious pilgrimages should mark the beginning of governments complete disengagement from religious activities. Despite the clear and unambiguous stance of the Nigerian Constitution on the adoption and promotion of state religion, government at all levels has always found ways to channel scarce resources into the sponsorship of religious activities, especially those of the two dominant religions, Islam and Christianity.Speaking recently at the inauguration of an 11-man Federal Government delegation to the 2011 Christian Pilgrimage, President Goodluck Jonathan hinted that pilgrimages would soon become self-funding. It will also come to a time when the Federal Government will no longer be spending money to manage the exercise, he reportedly told the delegation, citing the rapidly increasing number of pilgrims and the resultant high cost of sponsorship.Closely related to the doling out of huge sums of money for pilgrimages is the practice of subsidising the rate at which foreign exchange is sold to pilgrims by the Central Bank of Nigeria. For instance, last year, a CBN circular confirmed the approval of foreign exchange at the concessionary rate of N135 per the United States dollar instead of the parallel market rate of N150 per dollar. For a country that does not subsidise the cost of education for its nationals schooling abroad, one that is seriously mulling over the removal of subsidies from petroleum products, the continued sponsorship of pilgrimages suggests a gross misplacement of priorities.Although governments involvement in pilgrimages started with the establishment of a pilgrims board in 1975 to facilitate trips to the holy lands, that gesture eventually graduated to the massive funding of such trips with public resources. And rather than respond to criticisms by allowing individuals to undertake this strictly private religious obligation on their own, the government, in 1980, created a competing platform to accommodate Christian pilgrimages.While Jonathans statement may have come as a relief to believers in secularism, it is, nonetheless, still surprising that the President did not pronounce, forthwith, an outright renunciation of this unconstitutional, profligate and hypocritical role. Section 10 of the 1999 Constitution explicitly states, The government of the Federation or of a State shall not adopt any religion as a State Religion. Yet, Nigerian governments at all levels, continue to squander billions of taxpayers money on the sponsorship of pilgrimages in the face of competing demands from infrastructure, education, health, transport, security, unemployment and agriculture, among others.Last year, it was reported that the Kebbi State Pilgrims Welfare Agency coughed up N2.1 billion as fares for the states 5,700 pilgrims, while the Oyo State Government wrote off fares for over 1,000 Saudi Arabia-bound pilgrims. According to the official website of the Katsina State Government, the state doled out N200 million to subsidise the 2008 pilgrimage only to raise this to N357.8 million for the current year. Also, in Jigawa, the government made available N100 million to fund free feeding for the states pilgrims to Saudi Arabia.Not willing to be outdone, Christians have also jumped on the bandwagon, with Delta State splashing out N170 million to sponsor 520 pilgrims to Israel in 2007. In order to meet its target of 30,000 pilgrims this year, the Nigerian Christian Pilgrims Commission embarked on sensitisation tours to convince states, not only to sponsor their citizens to pilgrimages, but to also increase the number of beneficiaries of such sponsorship. Recently, the sensitisation team was in Abia and Enugu states to make a case for increased sponsorship. The Executive Secretary of the NCPC, Kennedy Opara, exhorted the Abia State Governor, Theodore Orji, to use your good offices and sponsor more pilgrims, for the people of Abia love you. Opara suggested that such sponsorship should form part of a reward mechanism for hard-working and loyal staff. Aside from Israel, pilgrims also have options of visiting other sites in Greece and Italy.Diversion of resources into the sponsorship of pilgrimages is not the only way the government has been getting involved in the sponsorship of religious activities. Last year, the Bauchi State Government was named as the main sponsor of the annual convention of the womens wing of the Christian Association of Nigeria, even as the Gombe State Government reportedly doled out sums of N100 million and N50 million for the building of a mosque and a church respectively in 2008.This is happening in a country that has no social welfare programme for the unemployed and the aged and where the healthcare delivery system is extremely troubling. It is said that about 55 per cent of Nigerias 150 million people live on less than one dollar per day, which is one of the highest poverty rates in sub-Saharan Africa, the worlds poorest region. In a country where the basic law forbids the adoption of a state religion, the governments overt support for Christianity and Islam is, therefore, not only a flagrant abuse of the Constitution and a blatant bias against other religions, but a demonstration of irresponsible and hypocritical leadership.Aside from Islamic countries, it is becoming increasingly unpopular for any government to subsidise pilgrimages in countries where other religions enjoy considerable following. In India, for instance, public interest litigation was filed seeking to end such subsidies. The secularity of the Nigerian state must be defended and promoted at all times. It is, indeed, absurd that, in spite of the claim to deep religiosity, the country remains one of the most violent and corrupt in the world. It is wrong to use the resources belonging to every tax payer to support members of just two religions.
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