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 almost 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, it said, recorded the highest contraction of 27.1 percent as its nominal GDP dropped from $28.4 billion to $20.7 billion.
With the level of poverty in the country today, many Nigerians would rather see this global assessment of Nigeria’s economy 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 by reflecting visibly in the quality of the life of citizens. While people don’t doubt Nigeria’s position as the largest economy, it appears ridiculous that citizens from the same economy 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 recent 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 incongruence between the function of Zakat (poor rate) in the fair distribution of wealth among people and the miserable life lived by ordinary Nigerians.
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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 disconnect 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 boldly written on the faces of the people in this region confirms 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 make leaders in the region sad. 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 raised an alarm when, in October 2018, he said unless something was strategically done to avert the trend, Nigeria was on its way to becoming the poverty capital of the world.
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 Zakat payers reach persons entitled to it.
When there were few millionaires in the 1970s, poverty-rate in the region 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, and its indigent people fewer than we have. Many still don’t understand why the prosperity of a people would be so disproportionate to the wealth in the hands of the people of that 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. Maybe, the Zakat actually get to 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 states. This is in spite of the strong passion, political sentiments, excitement, and controversies that greeted it. May Allah guide us in our quest to reduce poverty in Nigeria, amin.
