Ramadan: TUC salutes Muslim faithful

Ukpono Ukpong, Abuja

The President, Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC), Comrade Bobboi Kaigama, has felicitated all Muslims faithful on the special occasion of Ramadan, a month long fast observed by the over 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide, even as he observed that the spiritual exercise is one of the five pillars of Islam, which also include prayer, charity and total abstinence from all activities that gratifies the body.

Comrade Kaigama stressed that it was never enough to deny ourselves food, water and sex for one month, only to return to looting and sponsoring communities against themselves

“World over people know that Nigerians are very religious people. We adhere to virtually all spiritual activities (including peganism) but we never get to practice what we are taught. How then are we trying to perfect your relationship with our creator? Our problem is that we have a form of godliness but we deny the power thereof. That is hypocrisy.

“From the president to the councilor and ward chairmen/women belong to a particular religion but how have we fared as a country?

Isn’t it obvious that we are deceiving ourselves and taking the grace of God for granted? In Nigeria political office holders swear by either the Quran or Bible/ pray at the beginning of every meeting but lie throughout.

“We are spiritual beings housed in a physical container, we must not allow this physical body dominate our narrative. This is the time to focus as much as possible on our creator.

This is a time to be patient and yielding. It is an opportunity to have a month long discourse with the creator. It is very, very personal. We must use this period to match our words with action.

“When we reflect on Ramadan it should remind us that as a country we need to be upright and honest if we must measure up with other nations of the world.

We all should understand that our purpose in life here is to live in obedience to our Creator’s will and make other people happy.” He said

Furthermore, Kaigama added that for Nigeria to come out of her doldrums Nigerians must allow spiritual exercises like this to impact on them.