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Nigeria
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Khalifa Sheikh Qaribullah Nasir Kabara, leader of the Qadiriyyah Sufi Movement, leads the annual Maukib festival, Kano, Nigeria |
ARC's faith partners in Nigeria
ARC is working with two faith groups in Nigeria who have developed long-term environmental action plans and were among 26 Christian, Muslim and Hindu faith groups in sub-Saharan Africa that launched long-term environmental action plans at ARC's Many Heavens, One Earth, Our Continent Celebration in Nairobi, Kenya, in September 2012.
Our faith partners include:
Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja
Qadiriyyah Movement in Nigeria
Read more about their activities below.
Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja
The Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja in Nigeria has around one million members served by 270 priests and 550 reverend sisters. It runs 63 schools and 19 training facilities, educating 50,000 students, along with 28 organisations from women’s associations to young people’s groups.
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Tree planting celebration entitled ‘Planting for Peace and Development in Nigeria’ organised by the Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja in May 2012 for 250 Christian and Muslim young people. |
In December 2010, its Archbishop John Onaiyekan attended a three-day event in London organised by ARC and the British Council for leading Christian and Muslim leaders in Nigeria to discuss environmental issues and the drawing up of a long-term plan on the environment.
The Nigerian faith leaders met with HRH The Prince of Wales, the
Anglican Bishop of London, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, the Lord Mayor of London and other British faith leaders and politicians.
As a result of that meeting, the Archdiocese of Abuja has drawn up a long-term plan of action on the environment and established Catholic Archdiocesan nurseries providing more than 5,000 seedlings to parishes, schools and non-Catholic institutions free of charge.
Long-term Commitment for a Living Planet
Create awareness on climate change;
Green the environment by establishing nurseries and distributing seedlings to green school land and premises;
Plant trees and beautify Abuja streets/highways;
Integrate religious values into education for sustainable development in our faith schools and communities;
Engage in advocacy, networking and partnership with government and non-governmental organisations on climate change.
To read the plan, click here.
To read a summary of the plan, click here.
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Qadiriyyah pilgrims in Kano, Nigeria, process during the annual Maukib festival |
Qadiriyyah Movement in Nigeria
The Qadiriyyah Movement is Nigeria’s largest Islamic sect with an estimated 15 million followers in the country. It has 1,500 full-time imams and muqaddams (spiritual representatives) largely in Northern and South Western states of Nigeria as well as in Northern Sudan, Niger, Chad, Togo, Cameroon and Ghana.
The movement runs 118 primary schools, 34 secondary schools, two theological colleges and has more than 8,000 affiliated mosques.
Khalifa Sheikh Qaribullah Nasir Kabara is the leader of the Qadiriyyah Sufi Movement in Nigeria and the entire West African region. He was one of four leaders who attended the ARC/British Council-organised visit of Nigerian leaders to the UK in November 2010 and who committed to drawing up a long-term plan of action on the environment.
In November 2011, the Qadiriyyah Movement in Nigeria, along with the city of Kano in Nigeria, joined as founding members of ARC’s new initiative, the Green Pilgrimage Network, launched at Assisi, Italy.
This is a global network of green pilgrim cities and sacred sites of all faiths; 1.5 million Muslim pilgrims from West Africa go to Kano each year to visit the tombs of the local Qadiriyyah saints for the annual Maukib festival.
The Qadiriyyah Movement has a programme in which its schoolchildren are given two tree seedlings to plant at the start of the school year; one to plant in the school orchard and one to take home. At the end of the year pupils are assessed on how well they have looked after their trees, and this contributes to half their academic marks.
Long-term Commitment for a Living Planet
The Qadiriyyah long-term plan on the environment includes proposals to:
Establish a 250,000 capacity tree nursery for the Qadiriyyah Movement in Kano and provide tree nursery management training;
Develop gardens and orchards in urban and rural Qadiriyyah schools;
Establish Qadiriyyah 'Green Grocery' kiosks for food security and economic empowerment, with fruits and vegetables provided by school gardens;
Extend its poly bag pick-up campaign, under which schoolchildren pick up used plastic bags in their neighbourhoods, to schools throughout the Kano area;
Expand environmental education in schools and the wider community.
To read a summary of the plan, click here.
To read the full plan, click here.
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