A former Vice Chancellor, University of Ilorin, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, is the Secretary-General of the Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs. He spoke with FRIDAY OLOKOR on the recent stampede during the symbolic stoning of the devil in this year’s Hajj pilgrimage in Mina, Saudi ArabiaThe 2015 Hajj in Saudi Arabia witnessed two major accidents. A crane fell on pilgrims, and not long after, there was a stampede. What were your immediate reactions?
I think the natural reaction is to feel very bad; it is to feel very sad for the lives of people who could have been protected but were terminated due to circumstances that I believe were preventable. But at the same time, accidents happen but what is important is that every man, everyone charged with the responsibility of protecting or catering for people should prove beyond reasonable doubts that enough safeguards had been made for the protection of lives. I am not sure that we cannot find evidence of lack of preparation and adequate provision for saving the lives of pilgrims in the two incidents. I am aware that Saudi Arabia is doing a fantastic job in terms of providing infrastructure but (probably due to diversion these days of the limited resources and human resources they have), I want to believe that sufficient arrangement had not been made for the security of pilgrims. I may be wrong but whether I am right or wrong, I believe this can be ascertained by setting up an independent international panel of objective people. It’s not just by apportioning blames and sanctions, but that we work out a programme that will make this kind of incident preventable in the future and I think that what is important is to be able to avoid this kind of incident in the future.
So in essence, your feeling is that the fallout has not been handled very well?
Not just the fallout, I believe that we need to know what happened and until the contrary is established, I want to believe that those charged with the responsibility of catering for the pilgrims should be held accountable for what has happened because we have contrary evidence and as at now, we do not know which one is correct. An independent panel that is not just local to Saudi Arabia will be able to establish what really happened.
The incident has triggered a blame-game; the Saudi authorities are blaming Africans, the Iranians are blaming the Saudi government, the prince, and some blame the Egyptians…
In this kind of situation, everybody is scared; every party wants to blame the other but we are not interested in the blame game. We are interested in establishing what actually happened. All these versions and many more are available to us, not just as Nigerians but as Muslims. The Saudi Arabian authorities owe us a duty to establish beyond reasonable doubt what actually happened. If it was true that a very important person was being protected, who was that? Was that proper? If it was true, what do we do to make sure that such a thing will never happen again and in that case, who will be responsible for the fallout? If some pilgrims actually walked against the traffic and caused the situation, again such people should be held responsible and it should be established. I performed hajj last year and I marvelled at the facilities provided.
Ordinarily, if rules are followed, there would be no reason for stampede because it has almost uncountable lanes at different layers and a one-way traffic. So if there was no blockage, if there was no walking against the traffic, I couldn’t see any other reason why such incident would happen. But in any case, I support the call of the Federal Government and our legislature that thorough investigation should be conducted. We feel for all persons who have lost their lives or who were injured but as Nigerians, we also believe that certain minimum provisions should be made for us in any country we visit for whatever purpose. Once we have visas to get to that country, that country owes us a responsibility of providing us the minimum level of security. I am yet to be convinced in this case that Saudi Arabia had done what is expected of the government.
You have contradicted what the Saudi Arabian authorities had said, that what has happened was the will of Allah. As a Muslim, don’t you believe that it was the will of God?
As far as I am concerned, what the Almighty Allah wants us to do is that when you try all your efforts and things don’t go your way, then you can say this is the way, (but) not when you are complacent, not when you kill somebody and then you say God has killed him. The fact of the matter is that nothing will happen except with the permission of Allah. But that does not mean that man should not do his own part of the bargain; otherwise, why wouldn’t man sit idly, not work, not eat and die of hunger and say Almighty God wants me to die? That is why I didn’t raise my finger. I think blaming everybody, including God, for what has happened will not help. Human beings must accept responsibility for what has been done. They were not working in the office of God, so they were not in the position to know what God wanted to do or what God did. We are not asking them to account for what God did or what God did not do, we are asking them to account for what is expected of their own people as human beings and not transfer their responsibilities to God because God will not immediately counter what they have said.
Don’t the Saudi authorities have a quota system that regulates the number of pilgrims who travel for Hajj?
Yes, definitely they have.
So what happened?
I can understand your concern, you are asking questions that every reasonable person should ask- what happened? And that is why we are asking that an objective investigation panel be set up because Saudi authorities cannot be seen as independent in this case because we believe they are culpable. They cannot sit in judgement over themselves and that is why we believe there must be an international panel that will establish what happened and who was responsible for what happened.
You visited Mecca last year, you talked about the lanes and they were able to manage the crowd control. Can we infer that this year either because they want to boost revenue through tourism, the Saudi government therefore didn’t restrict the number of pilgrims?
I wouldn’t believe so, Saudi Arabia has over the years been limiting the people going on pilgrimage and so, they will not. In fact, what we were accusing them of was preventing people from coming. The Saudi authorities will never admit more than their capacity but in this case, what we are saying is that enough provisions have not been made and the onus is on the Saudi government to show the whole world transparently that such was not the situation in this case. I don’t believe that they may have admitted more pilgrims for economic reasons because they have the ability to accommodate more than they have taken. We must look into what is happening. Normally, security in Saudi Arabia is very tight and very firm. But what is happening now? Is it that they have diverted some of their security men to other places outside the country? If that is the case, why would enough security not be provided for pilgrims? I think all these need to be looked into. I do not want to conclude because there are so many versions. If it was true that some people were walking against traffic, those people are also culpable but that does not absolve Saudi security men from preventing them from doing the wrong thing because they have always been very firm in preventing people from going against the rules in the country. But nevertheless, while we feel very sad and pray for the souls of the departed, we are also using this opportunity to thank everybody (that has shown support). We have seen the solidarity of the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo (SAN); you could see the feeling, you could see the concern when he was sending his message to the Muslim community in Nigeria in a televised programme. The action of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria and many other individuals across religious faith, gives me the impression that Nigerians will always rise in solidarity with their brothers whenever this kind of thing happens and it is very encouraging, particularly at this time that we are all depressed about the number and quality of people involved.
Some people believe that this spiritual exercise of stoning the devil could have been done in batches instead of together at once…
Yes, that is also true, Saudi Arabia had a calendar. I attended the sensitisation programme before we left. Even some scholars were questioning the programme and saying why should the Saudi government ask Nigerians to go at a particular time? They have a programme and the authorities in Nigeria told them clearly to follow the programme but there is no evidence to suggest that Nigerians or others did not follow the programme and we have not heard that as one of the plausible reasons. That is why we need to know what happened. There is a programme, nations have been slated to go at different times during the exercise of the symbolic stoning of the devil. Unless there is an abnormality, there is no way (such incident would happen) because the facilities have been expanded. There are two possibilities; the possibility of a blockage which we cannot establish at this time; another one is the possibility of people walking in the opposite direction out of laziness of not wanting to trek for one or two kilometres back to the camp, which is very dangerous. If anyone had done that, that person must have at least, committed manslaughter if not murder.
We know that a large crowd moves through the streets to perform the exercise of throwing stones. How can a stampede be prevented in future?
Until we know what has happened, we may not be able to give the solution. To me, the provisions made now, if they are followed, are adequate. But I also believe another thing that could be done probably is to have a moving belt, a conveyor belt that will be moving at one particular end towards the right direction. It would prevent others from coming from the opposite direction because they will have to move in the direction of the conveyor belt. That does not mean that conveyor belts should be provided on all the paths, no; at intervals, there should be conveyor belts moving in one direction that will make it impossible for anybody whether very important or very lowly to move in the opposite direction.
One of the issues that are being debated is if it will be possible for the rites of pilgrimage to be spread round the year to prevent having too much crowd going at one time?
The period of Hajj is a specified period, so there is no other way. People perform pilgrimage all year round, even now people have started another round but the Hajj has to be performed at a specified time. I think it is not a matter of lack of infrastructure, it is a matter of an abnormality occurring and I think what we need to do is to identify what was abnormal that happened and find a way of preventing such a thing in the future. I don’t think it is because people are too many or that the place could not contain them. No I don’t believe so.
When the crane fell and killed some people earlier, some pilgrims said they envied the victims because Muslims believe that when they die in the holy land, it is a direct entry to heaven. Is this true for Muslims?
No! The truth is that in Islam, it is a grievous sin to willfully take life including one’s life. Islam prohibits suicide. For somebody to commit suicide and think that he will meet the pleasure of God is misplaced. What they are misapplying is the provision that if by accident one dies on such a cause without being the cause of it, given the fact that one is in the holy land, or serving God, not necessarily in the holy land. If you are in the course of doing what is good and it pleases God to take your life at that time, the position of Islam is that one will have the pleasure of God. It is not that one should go and attract calamity to himself. If one does that, he is working against the injunctions of the Quran and therefore will be punished rather than enjoy the pleasures of God. But if not planned for and accident occurs, Muslims have the consolation that because it was an accident and that person did not cause it, Allah will grant support to the victim. It is not that somebody will willingly and willfully cause the death of himself or others and think that he is doing that to gain the pleasures of God, I think that is misplaced.
Why has it been difficult for Nigeria to know the number of those affected?
To be fair to the organisers of the pilgrimage, Nigeria is a federation and when we operate as a federation; our constitution has given some powers to the component units. States have their pilgrims’ boards and the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria is to coordinate. Some people are asking whether NAHCON should account like some countries do. They were talking about countries like Ghana, which is not a federation but operating a unitary system of government. Therefore, all the pilgrims are under one umbrella but in the case of Nigeria, we have 37 umbrellas. NAHCON coordinates all the 36 states and Abuja and they are independent. They look for their own accommodation. NAHCON is a coordinator. Most of those states, when they go on Hajj, try to assert their independence from the Federal Government and say ‘I am a state, my board was established under the state law, once I do not violate any law, you cannot intimidate me’. That is the posture. I think, given this type of federation system that we operate, even on Hajj, I do not think it is right to blame the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria for the delay. I think the commission should do more, but we need to encourage it. What we need to do for now until the contrary is established, is to encourage the operators, the commissioners and all other government officials who are working to get the best for this country.
There is no insurance cover but why has the hajj commission not made it compulsory for Nigerians to buy travel insurance before going?
Will travel insurance prevent their deaths? Travel insurance is something to assure them that in case they die, their offspring or those who are left behind will have some benefits. From Islamic point of view, there are systems of cooperative insurance that is allowed in Islam called Takaful. There are some insurance companies in Nigeria that are operating windows of Takaful that is allowed. Insurance as we practise it in conventional form is even not acceptable to Islam because it is exploitative. They collect money from you, and when there is no accident, you lose your money and you pay another premium the following year. But Islam has a method that can be used but that is not relevant to this issue because we are not talking about the dependants suffering or not suffering. If somebody has insurance and he dies, the insurance will be activated and the beneficiaries will enjoy the outcome. But to ask that insurance be imposed on our pilgrims will be asking too much and of course, we will be creating some other matters including theological issues.
The Christian Association of Nigeria has raised the alarm that the leadership of the Islamic community in Nigeria, Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, has frustrated every effort made to convene a meeting for the past three years. It was alleged that you and the Sultan of Sokoto have been frustrating the efforts. How do you react to this?
Such an allegation is not worthy of attention, particularly at a time when we do not want a situation of transferred aggression, may God help those who make such false allegations.
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