A Review of Government Sponsored Pilgrimages in Nigeria

Nigerian national and sub-national governments are in the habit of using scarce resources to pay for the religious trips of their citizens to the holy lands each year. The benefits of these trips to the government cannot and have never been assessed. The country's Constitution expressly prohibits all governments from adoption or sponsorship of religion in any form. Government officials have expressed personal wishes to end the practice, but political expediency forces them to continue to vote funds for the jamboree. The economic, constitutional and other implications of this extra-budgetary expenditure are reviewed in this book. At the end of it all, a strong recommendation is made for Nigerian governments to end the wasteful practice.