By Saheed Salawu
THE Council of Ulama of Nigeria has appealed to the Federal Government not to hold the scheduled 2023 census during the month of Ramadan.
The council, according to triumphnews.org, made the appeal in a communique after its Annual General Meeting (AGM) held at the national headquarters of the Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI) in Kaduna.
The National Population Commission (NPC) had fixed March 29 to April 2 as the dates for the official count of the nation’s population.
Reading the communique, the national secretary of the council, Professor Muhammad Abubakar, described census as an important activity in any country which provides government with information and data necessary for development.
He said: “The council is fully in support of the exercise but the timing is wrong as it will involve Ramadan period.
“The council, therefore, calls for little adjustment so that Muslims can fully participate without any hindrance.”
The council’s call followed an earlier statement, late January, by the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) in which it expressed opposition to a census exercise taking place during Ramadan.
MURIC, in the statement, signed by its director, Professor Ishaq Akintola, observed that March 29 to April 2 might not be good dates for the exercise because they fall within the first and second weeks of Ramadan.
The body said: “Although nothing in our religion says working during the month of Ramadan is prohibited and millions of Muslims do their daily works during the month of Ramadan, the rigorous spiritual exercise in Ramadan cannot be easily combined with the hazards of census for the citizens who are to be counted and the enumerators too.
“Experience has shown that the ad hoc workers of the census exercise are usually taken into villages. The work consumes time and energy. It entails training of enumerators, supervisors and other facilitators on how to fill forms for households and field work.
“Census ad hoc workers move from house to house and come back in the night to fill certain forms. They continue doing this for five consecutive days. It is obvious that Muslims among the ad hoc staff who are fasting will certainly suffer hardship if the exercise is held in Ramadan. Muslims who are fasting are most active from morning till noon after which the law of diminishing returns takes over.
“MURIC wants stakeholders to accept the fact that Nigeria is not a secular state where the opinions of religious groups are inconsequential. It is a multi-religious nation. We must stop planning projects without any input from all interested parties. Wide consultation is necessary when planning events.”
The Council of Ulama’s meeting was attended by Muslim scholars, imams and academicians from across the states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.
Its communique explained that the participants had exhaustive deliberations on a number of salient national issues.
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