Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Alhaji Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, has weighed in on the treatment meted to Nigerian female pilgrims to this year’s Hajj, describing the action of the Saudi authorities as unjustifiable and urging the Nigerian Government to retaliate.

In a post he made on the online community, YanArewa@yahoogroups.com, Sanusi, a devout Muslim, wrote: “The most annoying thing here is that NOTHING in Muslim Law requires a woman travelling in a large group to go with a muharram. And scholars define the large group at 20. So when a woman is part of a hajj delegation from a state with thousands of pilgrims why must she have a muharram? The Law is unIslamic and a violation of their fundamental rights and I hope after Hajj the Nigerian govt will treat Saudi Arabia the way we treated South Africa. This should just not happen and the Saudis are getting away with abuse.”

Muharram refers to a male companion (husband or relative) accompanying a female Muslim on the Hajj.

As earlier reported by News Express, Nigeria has temporarily suspended the airlifting of pilgrims to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj the refusal the detention of 1,000 Nigerian female pilgrims, who are currently being deported, for allegedly not having muharram.

News Express recalls that Nigeria had tamed South Africa during a diplomatic row that erupted last March following South Africa’s deportation of 125 Nigerians, who were refused entry into South Africa by immigration officers in Johannesburg over the possession of allegedly fake yellow card.

Replying a YanArewa community member who attempted to fault his position on the Hajj impasse, Sanusi (shown in photo) wrote in a follow-up post: You miss the entire point of my post. The real issue is not whether the law in Saudi Arabia is Islamic or not, but if the Saudis have the right to treat Nigerian citizens this way in any case. The FG must protect Nigerians from humiliation and we should not treat Saudi Arabia with kid gloves because they are Saudi Arabia. My point is that even the excuse of Islamic Law is not available to them because the law contradicts the Shariah and this is a matter on which there is no dissent that I am aware of. In any case the dominant view and the practice has always been that women may travel in a group unaccompanied.”

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