- Written by Remi Oladoye
About 15,000 pilgrims including distinguished men and women , politicians and other categories of Nigerians visit holy land almost every year, but to what extent has this visit affected and influenced these pilgrims in their modus operandi via influencing changes in their immediate environment and the society at large?
It was in attempt to achieve this that NCPC last year, in preparation for the pilgrimage exercise organised a retreat for Boards of Pilgrimage in Nigeria with the topic “Pilgrimage, a tool for moral and spiritual rebirth.” The retreat was rich in content that virtually everybody at the gathering commended the Executive Secretary of the NCPC, Mr John Kenedy Okpara for a topic well thought out.
And truly, a visit to Jerusalem was not only an eye opener for spiritual rebirth, but also enabled one to gain an insight to why Nigeria has refused to walk when he should have been flying .
As one of the privileged souls to visit the holy land, it was discovered that Nigeria still has a long way to go in terms of infrastructural development and generation of huge revenue through promotion of our heritage sites and tourism and at the same time see the need to sanitise the people on the need to encourage living in harmony.
Isreal is no doubt one of the best countries in the world that generates most of its income through promotion of tourism and mechanised farming.
One realised that Israel perceived pilgrimage beyond spiritual
exercise and has gone a step further to tap the tourism aspect for
economic growth , thus making religious tourism, an important
industry which it has spent heavily on to enhance the country’s
temperate climate, beaches, archaeological, historical sites, and unique
geography in drawing tourists. While Nigeria is wasting its museums
and artifacts collections, Isreal which has the highest number of
museums per capita in the world. has continued to expose theirs to
visitors thereby turning it to gold mines.
One of the things that remain fascinating is the fact that power
supply in Israel is a 24-hour affair as well as water supply. The
roads are good and the cities are very beautiful, while the layout is
appropriately planned.Our tour guide, Mr Nathan Hinial, while speaking on the architectural designs of the Israeli and Palestine said “ We are good in construction and remember we don’t normally use wood for construction, we use limestone. And you can see that most of the buildings in most of the villages are standard that can compete anywhere in the world.”
First time visitor will find Mount Taber, The Mount of
Transfiguration, Mount Camel where Prophet Elijah trashed the prophets
of Baal, the two churches in the Basilica of Annunciation which were
dedicated to both Mary and Joseph, relics of his carpentry workshops
are fascinating. Also, we were at the Church of Canaan where Jesus
turned water into wine, Mount of the Beatitudes where Jesus fed people
with five loaves of bread and two piece of fish and the sea of Galilee
where Jesus calmed the storm and walked on the sea. During the cruise on
the sea of Galilee, we danced to Nigerian music and held a prayer
session led by Venerable Peter Ogunmuyiwa, the South West Coordinator of
Christian Association of Nigeria on National Issues.Apart from visiting Haifa, one of the largest cities in Northern Israel, we were also taken to River Jordan where Jesus was baptised. Here, we saw plagues donated by about 10 governors including former governors of Oyo, Ogun, Otunba Adebayo Alao Akala, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, and the incumbent governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Raji Fashola, and many others were planted at the location.
Another historical site of interest visited was Capernaum, where the statue of Peter holding a key and the rod after and later to the relics of the old Capernaum and Synagogue.
Mr Amro Motasem who took us on a tour of Bethlehem explained to us that Bethlehem is a place noted for religious harmony ‘Bethlehem is known to be a birth place of Christ, but Bethlehem has a Muslim majority, but is also home to one of the largest Palestinian Christian communities.
Bethlehem’s chief economic sector is tourism which peaks during the Christmas season when Christian pilgrims throng to the Church of the Nativity .”
The Church of Nativity which is believed to be the birth place of Jesus Christ is directly opposite the Bethlehem Central Mosque, the biggest mosque where Muslims also worship.
Entering the manger was a difficult task as thousands of pilgrims were struggling to enter the exact place where Jesus was born. Commercial activities thrived well outside the church and the mosque as traders vend consumable goods, souvenirs, while photographers made money.
Photographers made a lot of money as they charged five US dollar about (1,500 naira) for a copy of a photograph.
Kerim Village near Jerusalem is known to be the village of John the Baptist where the Church of Visitation is located and where Mary visited Elizabeth and where the angel of the Lord announced the birth of Jesus Christ were all spots of interest.
An experience at Jericho was awesome and a memorable one as pilgrims were frightened and some seen screaming on their way to the mountain of Temptation where Jesus was tempted. Inside the mountain was a cave restaurant and shops where souvenirs were being sold.
Journey to the Holy land offers immeasurable and unquantifiable experience and exposure.
But it is obvious that there is need for Nigeria to learn from the Israeli and Palestine especially in the way we preserve and market their tourism sites to the world. We have them in abundance in Nigeria, but what are we doing with them?
Nigerian government through the NTDC has taken a right step by re-awakening the dying tourism sector in the country, but there is little it can achieve if the state governors, local government chairmen and other stakeholders do not support its effort at taking the sector to greater heights.
Another important lesson Nigerians who were privileged to visit the lands of Isreal and Palestine is the need to live in peace and harmony without religious or ethnicity sentiment.
Amro, a Palestinian said “In Palestine, we don’t discriminate. The only thing which separates us is cemetery, because dead Christians and Muslims are not buried at the same place. We are brothers and sisters, we relate because we believe the first thing that matters is humanity and humility, nobody is above each other, no matter how highly placed, you have to respect others.” He explained further that: “We marry each other, so far there is love and our children choose which way to go without any problem, whenever they, celebrate Christmas, we do it together for example on the Christmas Day, about 60 per cent of the people you will find at the Church of Nativity would be muslims, we celebrate with them and vice versa.”
An important thing to note is that the tourism potentials deposited in the two lands are money spinning ventures for both the government and the people of the state. Each site has one or two shops named after it; for instance, I saw an inscription which reads “ First Wedding Wine, John the Baptist’s Shops, Prophet Elisha’s Shop among others.”
