Finding itself in a hole last week, the Central Bank of Nigeria dug itself deeper. Its effort to justify the subversive concessionary foreign exchange rate it granted to Muslims embarking on this year’s pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia on the grounds that Christian pilgrims would enjoy the same waiver only exposed its hypocrisy. The entire sordid saga also demonstrates how religion and narrow interests often take precedence over the country’s economic imperatives.
The news hit Nigerians like a bolt. News outlets quoted a CBN circular, dated August 4, authorising forex dealers and the public on the 2016 Hajj operations thus: “The Federal Government has approved that intending pilgrims are to be sold the PTA (Pilgrims Travelling Allowance) at a concessionary exchange rate of N197 to the US dollar.” It further said that each pilgrim would be entitled to a minimum of $750 and a maximum of $1,000. At a time of economic adversity, this is curious.
In response to the furore and public anger at this latest public romance with religion, both the CBN and the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria have come out with “clarifications” that, however, fail to mitigate the financial loss to the treasury or the folly of excessive government indulgence of religion. According to the CBN, there was in fact no preferential exchange rate “of any sort,” insisting that the exchange rate of N197 to $1 approved was negotiated in April, a month before the naira was allowed to float under the new Flexible Exchange Rate policy. This line was followed by NAHCON, saying that it had agreed on the amount with the CBN “since February” and saw no reason why pilgrims should pay more now that the naira exchanged for N345 and above to $1.
The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, and NAHCON Chairman, Abdullahi Muhammed, argue that having negotiated to sell at N197 to $1 when the official rate was just that, it would, in Muhammed’s words, “be unfair to the pilgrims if they are now asked to access their money on the basis of the current exchange rate.” While Muhammed may be pardoned for his sentiment, the CBN governor has no right to operate on such sentiments.
We reject their justifications and that of the Presidency that, through its spokesman, Shehu Garba, reminded us that Christian pilgrims also enjoyed such privileges. No religion should enjoy any such perks. We insist that it is a concessionary rate and the CBN circular of August explicitly stated it as such, clearly declaring that the “Federal Government has approved….” No amount of subsequent dissembling can obviate this blatant state sponsorship of religion. The admission of the rate by all three – CBN, NAHCON and the Presidency – confirms their flagrant disregard for the secularity of the state and the insincerity advertised by a government and a central bank that cannot grant concessionary forex rates to manufacturers at a time of recession, only to readily subsidise Christian and Muslim pilgrimages. If all the approved number of 65,167 hajj pilgrims on the CBN’s circular buy $1,000 each at the concessionary rate, billions would have been used to subsidise pilgrims’ forex based on the difference between N197 and Monday’s rate of N345 to $1. Consider also that combined, NAHCON and the Nigerian Christian Pilgrims Commission have an allocation of N1.66 billion (N791.23 million and N870.75 million respectively) in this 2016 budget compared to N983.98 million for the Nigerian Investment Promotion Council, then our poor choices are obvious.
The country is in dire financial straits, with the economy contracting for the second straight quarter to March this year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, while the International Monetary Fund says output this year is the lowest in 25 years. Meanwhile, manufacturers and importers who placed orders for raw materials, machinery and parts before the naira flotation complain that they are obliged to buy forex at prevailing market rates, despite the implication of the higher costs on inflation and jobs. President Muhammadu Buhari rightly said recently that students schooling abroad would just have to cope with the new rates. Is the private religious travel obligation of a Christian or Muslim more important than manufacturing jobs or knowledge acquisition?
Buhari and Emefiele should be using fiscal and monetary tools to reverse the 25.1 per cent real unemployment: the NBS said 1.5 million more Nigerians became jobless in the first three months of 2016. We should not be misapplying our scarce reserves that fell to a 10-year low of $26.38 billion in May and lower to $26.34 billion in June. A central bank that placed forex restrictions on 41 imported items to conserve reserves is wrong to favour religious travel for concessions. If the CBN cannot give such concessions to employers of labour, it certainly should not give pilgrims. Religion should be left in the private realm, with the government providing only welfare and consular services. Buhari’s promise to stop sponsoring pilgrimages should include not granting concessionary forex rates. Pilgrimages should be treated as tourism.
We remain firm and persistent in our campaign against the state plunging into religion, a very combustible venture in a multicultural and multi-religious polity. Across the globe, several countries that do so are often mired in unrest, war and extremism. Once fiercely secular Turkey has bitten the bug and observers fear it may have begun a downward spiral. Those states of the North that give priority to religion over development programmes are entangled in insecurity, poverty, illiteracy and poor health indices.
Nigeria is said to be seeking $11 billion in loans to plug its spending deficit and the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, laments that the government borrows to pay public sector employees, while health and education facilities are broken. Government should get serious and face the economy with creativity and a higher sense of responsibility. It should drop this unrighteous involvement in religion and end the culture of entitlement it has fostered among the Christian and Muslim faithful.
