The outrage triggered by a circular from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on the foreign exchange concession to this year’s pilgrims to Saudi Arabia has refused to go away despite efforts by the Federal Government to douse the crisis. Opposition to the wrongheaded decision has grown despite the surreptitious withdrawal of the circular by the CBN and the attempts by the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) and the presidency to defend the unconscionable policy.
The CBN on August 4, 2016, had issued the circular, addressed to all authorised forex dealers and the public notifying them that the Federal Government had pegged the exchange rate for this year’s Pilgrims’ Travelling Allowance (PTA) at a concessionary rate of N197 to a dollar. This is against the prevailing rate of about N340 to a dollar subsisting in the foreign exchange market. According to the guidelines, each pilgrim for this year’s hajj to Saudi Arabia is entitled to a minimum of $700 and a maximum amount of $1,000.
However, a day after it issued the circular, which elicited widespread criticisms from a cross-section of critical stakeholders, the CBN deleted the circular from its website. NAHCON has followed up with a “clarification” on the government’s decision to subsidise religious tourism with the nation’s scarce forex in this time when industries are shutting down due to inability to access forex to procure raw materials and other vital components to reflate the sagging economy.
NAHCON, in a statement on the heels of the swirling criticism over the decision, said: “If there is one thing that the Government did for the Nigerian pilgrims, it was to allow the exchange rate prevalent at the time of payment of Hajj fare in February when the current flexible exchange rate was not in action to subsist.’’
Also, NAHCON Executive Chairman, Alhaji Abdullahi Mohammed, in what amounts to double speak, said the commission, along with state pilgrims agencies, met with the CBN and extracted an approval from the apex bank to use the prevailing exchange rate of N197 to $1 on which the hajj fares were computed. One of President Muhammadu Buhari’s spokesmen, Mallam Garba Shehu, said the policy, which he described as non-discriminatory, was approved before the current foreign exchange regime, which floated the naira, took off. Supporters of the policy have also countered that if it was sauce for Christian pilgrims to get forex at a concessionary rate of N160 to a dollar in October 2015, there was nothing wrong in ensuring equity by extending same concession to their Muslim counterparts. Irrespective of the government’s defence, the concession, especially in this critical time, is a case of misplaced priority and a triumph of emotions over fiscal prudence.
With the concession, the Nigerian taxpayers are being forced to cough up about N7.9 billion ($24.9 million) to subsidise what is largely a personal religious exercise in a nation that by virtue of its 1999 Constitution professes secularity. In this season of economic recession, this is a needless burden on the nation’s fragile foreign reserves, which stood at $26.229 billion in July.
It is ironic that a government that cannot adequately fund the real sector that could reflate the economy and return it to the path of growth could indulge in the luxury of funding personal religious quests of a fragment of its population. No matter how hard the Federal Government tried to spin the concession, it will not wash, especially in this era of acute forex scarcity that has forced the Buhari administration to float the naira, pushing the rate towards the N400 to $1 band.
It is certainly odd that of the 195 nations in the world, minus controversial Taiwan, only India and Nigeria are engaged in this fiscal rascality of spending public funds on purely religious matters. However, the current economic crisis has provided the Federal Government a good opportunity to pull back from spending public funds, in whatever guise, on any religious activity, especially the sponsorship or subsidizing of pilgrimages to Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Religion is a personal affair and the 1999 Constitution recognises it that way that is why the secularity of the nation is enshrined in Nigeria’s grundnorm. Even Islam that makes pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia as one of the pillars of the religion did so with a caveat: subject to the convenience or affordability of the faithful. Pilgrimages in Nigeria serve both pious and political purposes. Politicians use them as opportunity to reward loyalists. It is therefore unhealthy to spend public funds on people whose journey contributes virtually nothing to the Commonwealth.
Rather they boost the treasury of other nations. There is, therefore, no justifiable reason why any prudent government in these harsh times should fritter away public funds on such an exercise, no matter whatever the excuse might have been. The president, who has promised to stop funding pilgrimages, should live up to his promise by ensuring that no agency of government gives preferential treatment to pilgrims in access to forex. Besides, we call on the Federal Government to seize the moment to redirect the allocation of public funds towards enterprises that would boost economic growth and not on some “unproductive” religious ventures.
