The Muslim Association of Nigeria (MAN), Ibadan branch, has disbursed the sum of N1,450,000 to 24 beneficiaries from across Oyo State.
The distribution ceremony for 2018, held last weekend in Ibadan, at MAN Islamic Centre, Oke-Ado, Ibadan, was the second of its kind, the maiden edition having been held in 2017, when the association gave out about N1 million to 13 beneficiaries, including inmates of the Nigeria Prison, Agodi.
The chairman of the Zakat Administration Programme of the association (MANZAP), Alhaji Abdur-Rahman Abdul Ganiy, said the disbursement was geared towards stimulating economic empowerment, debt relief and medical support for the beneficiaries.
According to Alhaji Abdul Ganiy, the zakat programme was established in 2016 to sensitise members and non-members of MAN on the institution of zakat which every eligible Muslim must comply with.
He thanked the donors for consistently performing this religious duty which, he said, had been forgotten or neglected by many Muslims.
The secretary of the Muslim Community of Oyo State (MUSCOYS), Sheikh Ibrahim Busayri, in a lecture at the ceremony, emphasised the need for Muslims to put zakat key payment on their priority list in obedience to Allah, in order to purify their wealth and benefit the underprivileged.
Sheikh Busayri, who doubled as the representative of the chairman of the Zakat and Sadaqat Foundation (ZSF) in Oyo State, Dr Tirmisiy Jamiu, at the event, said while people who are steadfast in paying their zakat are bound to earn the pleasure of Allah, those who are negligent of this third pillar of Islam risk His wrath.
The scholar, who quoted a statistics of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) as indicating that 70 per cent of the Nigerian population were living below the poverty line, lamented that the majority of the country’s poor were Muslims.
He, however, noted that Muslims could take the initiative to correct the abnormality by using the leverage of zakat.
The chairman on the occasion, Alhaji Hameed Adedokun, expressed the need for the association to keep in contact with past beneficiaries of the zakat/sadaqat funds in order to evaluate their progress and measure the impact of the programme on their wellbeing.
Source: Nigerian Tribune
