The National Council of Nigeria Muslim Organization was inaugurated in Washington DC in 1976, with only three foundation chapters from New Jersey, Washington DC, and New York.
The initial constitution established the offices of the General Secretary and the Mission General.
In the late 1980s, with the growth in the population of Nigerian Muslims in the USA, member chapters increased to five Nigerian Muslim organizations/ Masjids, namely- New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Baltimore, and Washington DC.
In the early 1990s, membership increased to six chapters with the addition of the Chicago Chapter.
A new constitution was drafted and the Organization was incorporated in January 1995 as a non-profit Islamic organization, thus marking another landmark in the organization’s history.
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In the year 2000, a discussion by the Mission General with some other Nigerian Muslim Organizations brought about the conference of July 2001 with more chapters and new faces in the organization.
After several meetings of the new “Constitution Drafting Committee” and a couple of general meetings, which included delegates from several chapters, the new constitution was ratified in March 2002 at the Newark, NJ meeting.
The new officers were then selected according to the new constitution at the General meeting which took place in Providence, RI.
Nigerian Religious Leaders Call For Peace And Religious Tolerance
The National Council of Nigeria Muslim Organization was inaugurated in Washington DC in 1976, with only three foundation chapters from New Jersey, Washington DC and New York.
The initial constitution established the offices of General Secretary and the Mission General.
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In the late 1980s, with the growth in the population of Nigerian Muslims in the USA, member chapters increased to five Nigerian Muslim organizations/ Masjids, namely- New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Baltimore and Washington DC.
In the early 1990s, membership increased to six chapters with the addition of the Chicago Chapter.
A new constitution was drafted and the Organization was incorporated in January 1995 as non-profit Islamic organization, thus marking another landmark in the organization’s history.
In the year 2000, a discussion by the Mission General with some other Nigerian Muslim Organizations, brought about the conference of July 2001 with more chapters and new faces into the organization.
Newark, NJ. meeting.
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The new officers were then selected according to the new constitution at the General meeting which took place in Providence, RI.
The Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) was established in 1973 at a national conference of Nigerian Muslim leaders in Kaduna under the auspices of Jama'atu Nasril Islam (JNI), the group for all the Islamic organisations in Northern Nigeria.
In the South-West, prior to this conference, the first Muslim organisation to be formed after independence in 1960 was the United Muslim Council (UMC), but this was embraced by few Muslims in the Western Zone as it was championed by the ruling political party.
The council's mandate to serve as the apex leadership body for the Nigerian Muslim community was first undertaken by the first President-General, Sultan Siddiq Abubakar III of Sokoto, joined by the first Secretary-General, Ibrahim Dasuki, who later rose to sultan.
The former Nigerian Minister of Works, Isa Kaita, was appointed National Treasurer while Lateef Adegbite, the chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee and the Attorney-General and Commissioner of Justice of the Western Region of Nigeria, was made the first National Legal Adviser.
The leadership of the NSCIA includes the President-General, two Deputies President-General for the North and South (with the Shehu of Borno as the permanent Deputy President-General for the North), Secretary-General, Deputy Secretary-General (3), National Treasurer, National Legal Adviser, Deputy National Legal Adviser and Chairmen of the 36 states and FCT Councils of the NSCIA.
The council is led by the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar since 2006, with Is-haq O.
The membership of the General Assembly is stipulated in Article 6 of the NSCIA Constitution.
The General Assembly consists of the President-General of the Council, National Officers of the council, and State Council Representatives selected by their respective State Councils in accordance with the provision of paragraph (2) of the Article.
The NSCIA's National Secretariat, headquartered in Abuja, is headed by the Secretary-General.
It provides information, monthly moon-sighting reports, studies, and facilities needed by other organs for their effective operations.
It also executes tasks as instructed by the Legislative Organ, the Sultan - the President-General - and other Council's bodies.
The council also employs the services of a full-time Administrative Director-General who is hired on terms and conditions as the National Executive Council deems fit.
In 1975 when the Federal Government of Nigeria inaugurated the Constitution Drafting Committee, there was a hot debate on a proposed section of the constitution on the state and its fundamental objectives.
Despite the challenges of sectoral divisions, the NSCIA has become a leading voice for religious tolerance in Nigeria through active steps on improving peace and peaceful coexistence in the country.
The President-General of the Council and the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’d Abubakar, have been at the forefront of this campaign through several initiatives and appearances at local and high-level international panels such as the Wilson Centre, diplomatic organisations and the Sultan Foundation for Peace and Development (SFPD) among others.
In terms of results, the NSCIA, for instance, prevailed over Muslims, especially those in the North, who were agitated with the burning of mosques in the South East and South South regions following the hijacking of the #EndSARS protests in Nigeria.
Officials of the NSCIA have also participated at the Vienna Conference on Global Peace, Interfaith dialogue on religion and peace-making and several other peace-building platforms.
Besides, one notable initiative in the regard of peaceful co-existence is the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council (NIREC), a voluntary association jointly established by the leadership of the NSCIA and the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in 1999.
Nigerian Muslims are believed to have been marginalised in the country's financial sector and other growth-triggering financial interventions of the Central Bank due largely to the element of interest-forbidden in Islam-that is usually involved in the schemes.
For Muslims, who constitute well over half of the country's population, the question of avoiding interest is non-negotiable.
In the absence of non-interest finance, the result has been a high rate of financial exclusion of Muslims, over 60% in some Muslim-majority communities.
This leads to worsening incidence of abject poverty.
The implication is that without non-interest alternatives, the CBN can hardly attain its 80% financial inclusion earlier targeted for 2020 nor can any meaningful poverty alleviation and economic empowerment programme be actualised in the foreseeable future.
This explains why the Council engaged the Central Bank on the creation of a non-interest version of all its intervention programmes.
The NSCIA established a project entity called Mission for Education, Socials and Health (MESH), registered by the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) in April 2016 as part of its commitment to the social needs of Muslims and poverty alleviation among Nigerians.
Islam came to northern Nigeria over 700 years ago.
There are more than 250 ethnic groups in Nigeria.
Here is a table summarizing some key milestones in the history of the NSCIA:
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1973 | NSCIA established at a national conference in Kaduna |
| 1999 | Nigeria Inter-Religious Council (NIREC) established jointly with CAN |
| 2006 | Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar becomes the Sultan of Sokoto and leads the NSCIA |
| 2016 | NSCIA establishes MESH project for social needs and poverty alleviation |
This map, produced by Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois in 1900, illustrates the distribution of religions in Nigeria.
