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Friday Sermon: The Pilgrims Progress

Published

7 years ago

August 9, 2019

Eric

By Babatunde Jose

Tomorrow, Saturday, the 9^th day of the last month of the Islamic calendar Dhul Hijjah, over 2 million pilgrims will converge on Mount Arafat for the annual Hajj festival. Mount Arafat is an important place in Islam because pilgrims spend the afternoon there praying and supplicating to Allah to wash away their sins and make them whole again: Failure to be present in the plain of Arafat on the required day invalidates the pilgrimage. The Day of Arafat is an essential part of Hajj, and Aishah (RA) reported that The Messenger of Allah (SAWS) said, “There is no day on which Allah sets free more slaves from Hell than He does on the Day of Arafat (Muslim). It was on this special day in the afternoon of the Day of Arafat during his first and only Hajj that the Prophet (SAWS) made his famous farewell speech to a crowd of over 120,000 Companions. It was his last major speech, and that is why this Hajj is called the ‘Farewell Pilgrimage’.

Hajj is mentioned in several ayats in the Quran: “And proclaim that the people shall observe Hajj pilgrimage. They will come to you walking or riding on various exhausted (means of transportation). They will come from the farthest locations.”(Quran 22:27) See also (Quran 2:125) (Quran 2:158)(Quran 2:189)(2:196-203)(Quran 3:96-97)

Hajj attracts a very diverse multitude from all over the world, but it is important to clarify the largeness of the gathering as there has been a misconception on the part of many Muslims. Hajj is the second largest annual religious gathering.

Arba’een Pilgrimage is the world’s largest annual religious gathering that is held every year in Karbala, Iraq at the end of the 40-day mourning period following Ashura, the religious ritual for the commemoration of martyrdom of the grandson of Prophet Mohammad and the third Shia Imam, Husayn ibn Ali. The number of participants in the annual pilgrimage reached 20 million or more in 2016.

The Arba’een pilgrimage is non-obligatory compared to Hajj which is obligatory for those who can afford it.

There is however a Nigerian connection to this Shia event. Pilgrims in West Africa who are unable to go to Karbala due to the distance involved instead head toward Zaria in Nigeria to be addressed by the Shia cleric Ibrahim Zakzaky. These include pilgrims from Nigeria as well as Ghana, Chad, Cameroon, Benin and Togo. On 5 October 2017, this annual Arba’een trek was attacked by Kano police, resulting in the death of a religious leader and injury to dozens of participants. It was organised by the Islamic Movement of Nigeria. The Shiite problem has since developed into a political conundrum with its leadership under detention and Zakzaky’s Islamic Movement of Nigeria proscribed and declared a terrorist organization.

However, the largest religious gathering of all time is the Kumbh Mela festival of the Hindus in India. This year alone, 120 million people attended the Hindu religious festival which is held on the banks of the Gages River every 4 years. The government of India coughed out the sum of $600 million for the festival. A temporary city was constructed and 120,000 toilets provided for the pilgrims; 30,000 policemen were drafted to the place and medical facilities provided, all at the expense of the state. For centuries the faithful have come here to wash away their sins at the spot where the Ganges and Yamuna rivers converge with the invisible and mythic tributary known as the Sarasvati.

There is also another contentious matter relating to government sponsorship or involvement in pilgrimage; its organization and logistics. This has been an issue in our religiously charged political firmament. It however need not be so as there are historical and contemporary facts to suggest that governments all over the world have always been involved in the affairs of their citizens who embark on pilgrimage in their tens of thousands.

In Britain, for instance, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 2000 helped fund the British Hajj Delegation to provide consular support and medical services for its citizens on the ground in Saudi Arabia. Despite being officially secular, the French government posts a consul in Jeddah to help French nationals making the hajj. Russia—which has 14 million Muslim citizens, the largest population of any European country—has perhaps done the most to support its citizen-hajj pilgrims. Since the early 2000s, under the Putin government, Russia’s Muslims have enjoyed discounted flights to Jeddah during hajj season on Aeroflot, the state airline. A state-created hajj liaison office arranges visas and transportation. And in another twist, after annexing Crimea from Ukraine, Russia offered Crimean Tatars generous hajj subsidies ($1000 per person, about a third of the cost of an economy package tour).

Having inherited a hajj tradition with their colonial conquests, Europe’s imperial powers had to decide what to do with it. In the mid-nineteenth century, as hajj traffic between European colonies and Mecca began to grow, colonial officials nursed anxiety and fears of the hajj as a spreader of cholera and other infectious diseases; some even suggested banning the hajj. This was especially true after 1865, the year a massive cholera outbreak in Mecca became a global epidemic, spread far and wide by dispersing crowds of hajj pilgrims. After this epidemic—which killed more than 200,000 people worldwide in cities as far away as New York City—the European powers convened the first in a series of conferences that identified the hajj as a sanitary and security threat to empire. But attempts to ban the hajj proved impossible: as a pillar of Islam, and a duty for Muslims, the hajj could not be easily banned or stopped.

By the end of the nineteenth century, and for various reasons all of the European powers began to sponsor the hajj. They subsidized travel between their colonies and Arabia during hajj season, opened foreign consulates along routes to Mecca, and passed new laws to protect pilgrims from physical harm and financial scams.

In Jeddah, the Dutch had set up a multi-service “Hajj Bureau.” The British ran a medical dispensary out of their consulate, run by the vice-consul, a Muslim doctor and British subject from India. And European doctors and nurses staffed the two main quarantine facilities set up to screen hajj pilgrims in El Tor (at the bottom of the Sinai peninsula) and on Kamaran Island (in the Red Sea). By sponsoring the hajj, European colonial powers were simply trying to control or contain the problems it created as a mass, annual movement of people. It is however very clear to all non-mischievous observers that the Nigerian State does not underwrite the pilgrimage of Moslems to Mecca. If in offering Consular service, medical aid and welfare to pilgrims and being involved in the logistics of moving over 100,000 of its citizens to a foreign land for pilgrimage is termed as funding of religious activities, so be it. The Government of Nigeria has not been doing anything strange or unknown to international best practice. Wet therefore wish our pilgrims Hajj Mabrur.

Barka Juma’at, Barka de Salah and Happy weekend.

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FBN vs GHL: Supreme Court Voids Appeal Court Judgment, Orders Immediate Handover of FPSO Tamara Tokoni Crude Oil to General Hydrocarbons

Published

1 day ago

July 3, 2026

Eric

The long drawn legal tussle between FirstBank of Nigeria Limited and General Hydrocarbons Limited over the ownership of the crude oil aboard the FPSO Tamara Tokoni, may have come to a conclusive end as the Supreme Court of Nigeria delivered its judgment.

The Apex Court, on Friday, ordered the Chief Registrar of the Court of Appeal and the Admiralty Marshal to immediately hand over the crude oil aboard the FPSO Tamara Tokoni to General Hydrocarbons Limited (GHL), bringing to an end a legal dispute over the asset.

In a unanimous judgment delivered by a five-member panel of justices, the apex court held that the suit instituted by First Bank of Nigeria (FBN) was contractual in nature and not an admiralty matter.

The court consequently ruled that both the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal lacked the jurisdiction to entertain the case.

The Supreme Court accordingly allowed the appeal filed by General Hydrocarbons Limited and set aside the judgment of the Court of Appeal, describing it as perverse.

Justice Abiru, who read the lead judgment, announced the unanimous decision of the panel comprising Justices Uwani Aba-Aji, Salawa, Agim, Uwa and Abiru.

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GbajaGate: I’ve Done No Wrong, Govt Playing to Shut Me Up – Adeyemi Matthew Speaks from Hiding

Published

3 days ago

July 2, 2026

Eric

Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew, the man alleged to have forged government appointment letters and falsely paraded himself as the Director-General of the alleged Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) and Presidential Economic Advisory Council, has denied the allegations against him, claiming the Presidency is attempting to silence him.

Speaking with PREMIUM TIMES from an undisclosed location on Thursday, Adeyemi insisted he had done nothing wrong and described the government’s actions as a “defence mechanism.”

“You know the government we have. They are just playing a defence mechanism to shut me up. My organisation was set up in 2024,” he said.

Adeyemi declined to disclose his whereabouts, saying he had gone into hiding because his life was under threat.

“They are now after my life. I have gone into hiding. I’m underground,” he said.

When asked whether he had fled the country, he declined to respond directly.

“I will not be able to disclose any information now. I don’t consider myself safe,” he added.

The embattled suspect also declined to provide his alleged appointment letter or any document to support his claim that he was legitimately appointed, saying his lawyers had advised him not to discuss the matter publicly.

“I just decided to speak to you out of respect. My lawyers are working on something. Whatever they say, I will let you know,” he said.

The Presidency has accused Adeyemi of forging appointment letters and other official documents while falsely presenting himself as Director-General of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council and the Presidential Economic Advisory Council, agencies it insists do not exist.

Presidential spokesman, Bayo Onanuga, said Adeyemi and two others have been charged before the Federal High Court on an eight-count charge bordering on forgery, impersonation and related offences.

According to the Presidency, concerns first emerged after the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission reported that another body appeared to be performing functions similar to its statutory responsibilities.

The Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, subsequently petitioned the Department of State Services and the Nigeria Police Force, alleging that forged appointment letters bearing fake signatures, official seals and reference numbers had been used to create the impression that the suspects were presidential appointees.

The Presidency said investigations revealed that Adeyemi and his associates allegedly operated from an office within the Federal Secretariat Complex in Abuja, held meetings with Nigerian and foreign officials and sought diplomatic support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for visa applications.

According to the Presidency, police arrested Adeyemi on October 27, 2025, after which searches conducted at his office and residence allegedly yielded forged government documents.

Investigators also alleged that financial intelligence uncovered 34 bank accounts linked to Adeyemi, including accounts allegedly opened in the names of purported government agencies.

The Presidency further claimed that Adeyemi used forged documents to open an account with the Central Bank of Nigeria in the name of the alleged agency, although investigators found that no public funds were paid into the account.

Onanuga also dismissed allegations that Gbajabiamila demanded money from Adeyemi, saying the accusations surfaced only after the suspect was granted police bail.

The case is scheduled to come up before the Federal High Court on July 27.

Headline

Court Dismisses Abejide’s Suit, Upholds Mark-led Leadership of ADC

Published

3 days ago

July 2, 2026

Eric

The Federal High Court in Abuja on Thursday affirmed Sen. David Mark’s leadership of the African Democratic Congress (ADC).

Justice Musa Liman, in a judgment, also dismissed the suit filed by Rep Leke Abejide challenging Mark and Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola as national chairman and national secretary of the party for lacking merit.

Justice Liman upheld the preliminary objections filed by ADC, Chief Ralph Nwosu, Mark and Aregbesola which challenged Abejide’s suit.

The judge held that the court lacked the jurisdiction to dabble in the internal affairs of ADC, as the suit was non-justiciable.

He also held that Abejide lacked the legal right to have instituted the suit, having failed to show to the court that his rights had been violated in any way as a result of the emergence of Mark-led leadership.

He equally held that Abejide, who is a member of the House of Representatives, failed to explore the party’s internal mechanism for dispute resolution.

Justice Liman also resolved the three issues in the substantive suit in favour of the defendants.

On whether Mark, the former Senate president and Aregbesola, who was the former Governor of Osun, emerged as leaders of the party in compliance with the enabling laws, the judge resolved this against Abejide, the plaintiff in the suit.

He held that the handing over of the leadership of the party by Nwosu to Mark did not violate the provisions of the party’s constitution.

The judge agreed that the disputed July 2, 2025, meeting of the party was a stakeholder meeting which preceded the party’s National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held on July 29, 2025, which produced Mark and Aregbesola as the party’s leaders and was monitored by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Justice Liman, therefore, declared that the emergence of Mark and Aregbesola as leaders of ADC was valid and in accordance with the constitution, the Electoral Act, 2026 and the party’s law.

The judge consequently awarded a fine of N2 million each in favour of all the defendants which shall be paid by Abejide.

He also awarded a N10 million fine against Abejide’s lawyer in compliance with the Electoral Act, 2026.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Abejide had instituted the suit to stop the Mark-led leadership of ADC.

In the originating summons, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1637/2025, filed on Feb. 15 by Idris, the lawmaker sued ADC, Ralph Nwosu, Mark, Aregbesola and INEC as 1st to 5th defendants respectively.

NAN reports that Nwosu was the former national chairman of ADC who stepped down for Mark, the ex-Senate president.

Abejide, among the eight reliefs, sought an order nullifying Nwosu’s handover or transfer of ADC’s leadership to Mark and Aregbesola as interim national chairman and interim national secretary respectively on July 2, 2025, at Shehu Musa Yar’adua Centre, Abuja, for being illegal, unlawful, null and void.

He sought an order of perpetual injunction restraining Mark and Aregbesola from parading themselves as leaders of the party “as their purported appointment, selection or election was unlawful, illegal, null and void.”

He also sought perpetual injunction restraining INEC from recognising Mark and Aregbesola as ADC’s interim national chairman and interim national secretary.

He alleged that their appointment, selection or election did not meet the requirements of Section 82 of the Electoral Act, 2022, among other prayers.

NAN