By KAZEEM AKANDE
Alhaji Ganiyu Egunjobi, the Executive Chairman, Agege Local Government Council, Lagos, has urged Muslim Faithful to adhere to government directives on COVID-19 during the Ramadan period to prevent spread of the pandemic in the state.
Egunjobi gave the advice in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria on Thursday in Lagos.
According to him, Muslim Faithful should adhere strictly to all directives from the government during this Ramadan period to curtail further spread of the virus.
“I am not a nominal Muslim, I practise, but no religion, not even Islam subscribe to suicide or attempted suicide.
“We cannot continue to press the self-destruction button in the name of worshipping God,” he said.
The chairman said the local government had shut down the popular Alhaja Mosque in Agege, to prevent spread of the pandemic among the worshipers and residents as a whole.
Egunjobi said that such action had prevented the possible spread of the virus among the over 300 worshipers in the mosque.
“We recently made the headlines for leading a team of the council officials to shut down a mosque in the area where worshippers defied government’s ban on congregational worship amid the Coronavirus after they viciously attacked officials of the State’s Taskforce on the COVID-19.
“It was an unfortunate incident that if we had let go and failed to rise up to the occasion as a grassroots government, it has dire consequences which would hurt public policy in a great deal.
“It was quite appalling, a clear breach of government’s order, and to add insult to injury they attacked officials of the State’s Taskforce on COVID-19.
“We all know the state government has the capacity to deal with the situation but because mischievous bigots, ethnic jingoists and misguided elements among us may use the moment to fuel crisis.
“So, it required local solution and we stepped into the breach,” he said.
According to him, the council met with Sarkin Hausawa, and other stakeholders before we moved to the place, chased everybody out of the mosque, fumigated it, which I personally did and locked it up.
Egunjobi said that the council was trying to disabuse the mind of the people from erroneous belief that Coronavirus was the sickness of only the rich.
“I do tell those who insist on having religious gatherings and congregational worships that we cannot be more catholic than Pope.
Pope suspended all religious ceremonies from catholic mass to funeral in Vatican.
“The grand zero of Islam, Saudi Arabia, the authorities called off all year-round lesser hajj, Umrah, suspended congregational prayers of all forms and shapes in all the country’s mosques except the Grand mosque, Haram in Mecca and the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina where there are strict restriction on the number of worshippers while prayer outside the two holy mosques are prohibited,” he said.
He said that before the lockdown, the council had been carrying out aggressive sensitisation across all the nooks and crannies and stakeholders, but the compliance was nothing to write home about.
The chairman said that according to Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, (NCDC) there was only one case of Coronavirus victims in Agege, adding that this was not to say that the people were doing the right things.
It was reports that Saudi Arabia’s Supreme Court has reportedly urged its citizens to look out for the crescent moon on Thursday, April 23 and report their findings to moon sighting committees set up specifically for the purpose.
