Just last week, the World Bank reaffirmed Nigeria’s position as the largest economy on the African continent for the fifth consecutive year in 2022, with a nominal GDP of $477.4 billion. Nigeria, according to the data released, accounted for 17.4 percent of the African economy in the review year; adding that the country’s economy grew by 8.3 percent from the $440.8 billion recorded in the previous year. The other two countries that make up the top-three economies on the continent are Egypt and South Africa.
According to the World Bank report, the three giant economies account for about half of the continent’s economy (49.5 percent). While Angola is said to top the list of fastest-growing economies in Africa with a growth-rate of 62.5 percent, Zimbabwe, the report said, recorded the highest contraction of 27.1 percent as its nominal GDP dropped from $28.4 billion to $20.7 billion.
With the high level of poverty in the country today, many Nigerians would rather see this recent assessment of Nigeria’s economy by the World Bank as next to ‘fake news’. It’s not because they have any statistical evidence to dispute World Bank figures but because they believe there should be a correlation between a nation’s economy and citizens’ socio-economic wellbeing. To ordinary Nigerians who know little about national economies, being the largest economy within a continent or country should go beyond prosperous growth-rate of the economy. As far as they are concerned, the prosperity of any country’s economy should visbly reflect in the quality of the life of citizens. While Nigerians don’t doubt the country’s position as the largest economy, it appears ridiculous, for instance, that citizens from the same economy yet leave their home country to suffer xenophobia in South Africa; a smaller economy within the same continent.
A close look at other aspects of our life including religion suggests that the latest World Bank assessment of Nigeria’s economy may not be the only assertion with a disconnect with the overall wellbeing of Nigerians. Today’s slum life of millions of Nigerians is a reason for us to critically interrogate the disconnect between Zakat (poor rate) as a means for the fair distribution of wealth among people and the miserable life lived by most Nigerians.
In Islam, the payment of Zakat is one of the cardinal principles of the religion. It is the third of the five fundamental pillars of Islam, and only next to the observance of the five daily obligatory prayers. Besides reducing poverty and giving hope to those who may feel hopeless, Muslims through Zakat are able to care not just for the poor but for vulnerable classes of citizens including widows, orphans, and the disabled.
Like the economic valuation that designates Nigeria as the largest economy, the general lack access to basic necessities of life especially in the northern states of the country also alludes to a weird disconnection between the people of this geo-political zone and the taxable wealth that exists in the hands of the affluent of this same region. We are worried about the north because even with their resilience, the unspeakable level of abject poverty is boldly written on the faces of the people in this region; a testimony that the general hardship in the country is relatively harder with them.
This, however, wouldn’t be news to those who heard the 14th Sarkin Kano Muhammadu Sanusi II who, three years ago, said the north was leading other regions in poverty with 87 percent of its people living in deprivation; a situation he said was bad enough to rob leaders in the region of pleasurable moments even when there are reason to express happiness. Sanusi made this declaration in 2020 at an event marking the 60th birthday of the Nasir El-Rufai, the immediate past governor of Kaduna state. Two years earlier, Malam Sanusi had raised an alarm when, in October 2018, he said Nigeria was on its way to becoming the poverty capital of the world if nothing was strategically done to avert the trend.
While the north is believed to have a comparatively higher poverty-rate than other regions, this same section of the country is the home of a generation of the country’s wealthiest individuals including Africa’s richest man who, as Muslims, are expected to annually give 2.5 percent of their riches as Zakat. The value of Zakat is not to be looked at from the littleness of 2.5 percent paid on wealth. That which should matter is the value of the fraction and its impact on people’s wellbeing. Few years ago, the Central Bank of Nigeria revealed that monies left in dormant accounts (in their small values) in commercial banks were in trillions of naira. The then Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, consequently announced that the federal government was going to borrow from it to settle pressing financial issues. In this wise, the impact of Zakat would actually be huger by the time all the 2.5 percent given by the Zakat payers reach persons entitled to it.
When there were few millionaires in the 1970s, poverty-rate in the north was lower. How come poverty-rate is higher today when being wealthy is defined in terms of billions and trillions of naira? The ‘laymen’ among us would require clarifications from economists like the 14th Sarkin Kano to convince them why the north’s poverty-rate shouldn’t be lower than it is now. Many still don’t understand why the prosperity of the north would be so disproportionate to the wealth in the hands of the people of the same region.
From the list of recipients of Zakat listed in Qur’an 9:60, it’s apparent that Zakat is designed to, among other functions, reduce poverty and allow for investment in the wellbeing of the community where it is paid. As a divine mechanism, Zakat is meant to offset social and economic inequalities. This, however, is not the case in the north. People wonder why the impact of Zakat in the north does not reflect in the living conditions of the people of the region. It’s possible that the Zakat does not actually get to the categories of person defined in the Qur’an.
More than 20 years after many northern states’ governors launched the implementation of Shari’ah, Zakat administration has not gone beyond a dysfunctional system in many northern states. This is in spite of the strong passion, political sentiments, excitement, and controversies that greeted it. It is discernible from what we see in our mosques that the poor, rather than the wealthy, finds it easier to give alms. Each time monetary assistance is sought from worshippers for the cause of Allah (Fi Sabili-llahi), the majority of those that usually respond quickly are those who would give N200 to collect back N100 change or give N100 to collect back N50 change. Meanwhile, those who can there and then give the entire amount needed to solve a particular humanitarian problem confronting a person or group would only make pledges that are never redeemed.
Few are those, these days, of individuals who would give a thousand naira or more as alms when there’s a reason, time and place to show kindness to others. Ordinarily, the well-to-do among people should be more charitable than the haves-not. This orthodox mindset has since been altered in contemporary Muslims by modern secular thoughts including capitalism. Today, the wealthier a person is, the less generous he becomes. Although the insinuations here do not in any way seek to accuse the wealthy among Nigerian Muslims of not paying Zakat, it’s important for the rich among us to realise the significance of paying Zakat on taxable wealth whenever it is due because the consequences of not paying it are grave for the society. May Allah guide us in our collective quest to reduce poverty in Nigeria, amin.
