By Muyiwa Adetiba

There are two major countries in the world where the faithful go for Holy Pilgrimage. They are Saudi Arabia for Muslims and Israel for Christians. The two countries are in the Middle East. The more zealous ones add Egypt, Turkey, France and possibly Iraq. I don’t know about Nigeria as a destination. But we qualify especially if religious tourism is one of the reasons people go on pilgrimage. After all, if Abu Dhabi can showcase its magnificent mosque to the world, then we have our churches and auditoriums which must be among the largest in the world.

People go on pilgrimages ostensibly to strengthen their spiritualism and faith. They want to feel the earth–and hearth–where their prophets and saints passed through in order to identify with their pains and gains. They want the ancient monuments to speak to them in their efforts to navigate the labyrinths of life. The resolve of most Pilgrims is to be more like those who passed before them and laid their lives for the propagation of the faith.

Recently, news reached us that a certain Mecca—or Jerusalem—of sorts has been established in Nigeria. The prophets they are visiting are not yet dead. The saints they are communing with are still alive. How lucky these adherents must therefore be in the sense that they don’t need a séance or an intercessor. They can learn the essence of their faith and how to use the imperfect system of the world to their advantage directly from the horses’ mouth. The ‘site’ itself is not new. It has been in existence for at least 25 years. I am talking about the EFCC office in Abuja.

Recently, it has become an expensive hotel where prominent Nigerians spend the night or a week, and end up paying hundreds of millions for the services. It has also, like I said, become a Mecca. Led by a prominent cleric, some senators and members of the House of Representatives across the APC and PDP divide, including at least a sitting governor, have at different times, been paying solidarity visits to the more recent inmates. For the avoidance of doubt, these were not private visits done clandestinely at the break of dawn or in the dead of night.

These were solidarity visits done in the bright of day under klieg lights of publicity cameras. The visits were meant to attract attention and assure the inmates that they were not alone and that there were people out there who sympathised with them and identified with their cause.

And what is this cause? These people were not prisoners of conscience. They were not locked up because of their ideologies or disagreement with government. They were not incarcerated because of their religion or the articles they wrote. The last time I checked, they were picked up because funds, huge funds belonging to the commonwealth were traced to them and they needed to give account.

We hear of refunds or promises of refunds of 400 million, 500 million naira etc. a former custom officer was alleged to have refunded a billion naira! That is one thousand, thousand, thousand naira. Do we ever think of what that kind of money would do to any community in Nigeria? Find out what these people have done to generate employment and lift some people out of poverty line and the answer is zero.

These are the people our ‘Ogas at the top’ are identifying with by paying solidarity visits to. The argument that they were being persecuted because they were Jonathan’s men does not hold water. Nobody was put in government to put his hand in the cookie jar. I agree that APC has its own fair share of pen robbers and executhieves. Their own day of reckoning will come soon or later. But no general fights from all flanks and to do nothing because of this is a worse crime.

I can show this liberal cleric and his fellow travellers a few places they can visit if they really want to appeal to the conscience of the government and the nation. There is a certain cleric, but of a different persuasion, who has been incarcerated for about a year now on the grounds that his followers were violent and had become laws unto themselves. In fact, he comes from an area that is not too far from where this our reverend gentleman comes from. I believe the law should take its course if a specific crime is traced to this man. But to hold him while his followers are being decimated is in itself a crime.

All liberal minded men irrespective or religion, tribe or party should pay solidarity visits to buoy his spirit and assure him he is still a Nigerian. This is a worthier pilgrimage because injustice is being served to this man, his followers, his sect and humanity. I hope the nation doesn’t regret the seemingly high handed way the situation is being handled. Another ‘site’ that is worth visiting by men of conscience is the current abode of a certain young man who wishes to excise a portion of Nigeria. I don’t agree with his politics or his method but we cannot deny that he has some grounds for his disaffection.

In any case, he has some sentimental and emotional followers. Try him if you must but don’t hold unto him indefinitely. He has become to me, a prisoner of conscience. The third and most touching one is the old lady that was murdered in an ancient city in the North because of her faith. The purported murderers were recently released. Nobody has been arrested in their stead. This woman was somebody’s wife, mother and sibling. She belonged to a family; she belonged to a community. She did not just drop from the sky. Some hearts have suffered a loss; some hearts are bitter.

It would be a mistake to fuel the bitterness. If the perpetrators of her murder are not apprehended, there could be a repeat in another part of the country. Then, the nation would be reminded that there were precedents that were unattended to; sores that were allowed to fester. Because injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere, the outrage should not come from Christians alone. Again, it should cut across religious, ethnic and political divide. Her family needs a show of support through solidarity visits.

Finally, those who use myopic lenses to see theft and corruption as persecution should seek better clarity and stop self-delusion. And those who say glibly that the fight against corruption will not put food on the table should be told of the link between corruption, inefficiency and poverty. Those who pay unholy pilgrimages to unholy sites to visit unholy gods should stop. Otherwise, they will be regarded as accomplices.