Ustaz Adil Hussein Abdullah is the acting Director of the Nigeria Office of the International Islamic Relief Organisation (IIRO) founded by the Muslim World League. In this interview by SAHEED SALAWU, he speaks on the passion of the organisation for providing free eye surgeries for indigent people as well as other activities of the Saudi Arabia-based charity in Nigeria.
The IIRO is responsible for the organisation of the medical camp for free eye treatment for the underprivileged, which was held in Ibadan, the like of which is being rounded off in Ilorin. Tell us more about these camps?
Since 2009, the IIRO has been organising a lot of medical camps like the one we just had in Ibadan, but the camp were initially mainly in the North. The reason for this was because we did not have sufficient collaborations to ease our work in the South. But what we saw in Ibadan is a sign that we will not have a hard time working in the South or even in the East once we have support from necessary quarters. In the nearest future, we hope to be able to organise these medical camps in states like Imo. In the meantime, we may have an arrangement whereby people from the eastern part of the country will be moved to Kaduna so that they can benefit from the free eye operations. Nobody pays any fee for anything during the medical exercise. In 2016 alone, we organised four camps in Kano, Kaduna, Katsina and Niger states. Many times, we have organised what we call mega camps in the North. And unlike what we have seen in Ibadan where 500 people benefitted from the free eye operations, in each of these mega camps in the North, 1,000 people emerged as beneficiaries, in addition to hordes of other people that were treated for other eye-related problems.
Has your organisation always worked with the Albasar International Foundation, who are specialists in cataract operation, to organise these camps?
This was the first time IIRO would collaborate with Albasar to give Nigerians the free eye operation, mainly for cataract. We have worked with a number of other international organisations to achieve this in the past.
Tell us about the advent of IIRO in Nigeria?
IIRO came to Nigeria in 1989. Its Nigeria office is one of the 25 branches we have all over the world. The organisation has branches in Sudan, Chad, Mali, Benin Republic, Togo, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia, Jordan, Yemen, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Philippines and so on. In all these branches, they are doing the same things we are doing in Nigeria – helping the needy. All our activities are humanitarian and they are free of charge. It is kindness from the people of Saudi Arabia. King Salman has renewed the IIRO’s mandate to help the needy around the world.
Are there any challenges the organisation is facing in Nigeria and if any what is it doing to overcome them?
We used to face a lot of challenges but, thank God, the challenges are virtually over. Only in January, the IIRO signed an agreement with the Federal Government through the Ministry of National Planning and Budgeting. A part of the agreement is that the organisation is at liberty to transfer money to Nigeria to prosecute its activities. The organisation also enjoys collaboration with the Kaduna State government concerning its activities. It equally hopes to have a good relationship with the Oyo State government to ease its activities in the state such as the free eye treatment in Ibadan, which we sponsored. Alhamdulillah, we have a good relationship with the Nigerian government, particularly in the states. For example, in states like Sokoto, Kebbi and Katsina where we sponsor the education of orphans and see to their wellbeing, the governments support the organisation with the donation of vehicles and other facilities to aid our activities.
What inspired the activities of the organisation and how is it going about them?
Allah has given the people of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia great fortune and they are trying to make their brothers and sisters in Islam, and indeed all the people around the world happy. And one of the ways they are doing this is through the IIRO, by sponsoring a wide range of activities, which include the provision of healthcare like free eye surgery and which are designed to benefit even non-Muslims. We equally take care of orphans who are Christians.
In what other ways does the organisation impact the Nigerian people?
The IIRO sponsors the social welfare programmes, social development projects, emergency relief and Qur’an memorisation. We have education department which provides personnel for training people in the reading and memorisation of the Qur’an in many states of the federation. We also have preachers. We are planning to establish a vocational centre in Ibadan, where various skills will be taught to make the people self-reliant. We also have the engineering department which is meant mainly for building mosques and providing safe, drinking water for the people by digging wells and sinking boreholes. The department has carried out a lot of activities in the South, just as it has done in the North. We have built a lot of mosques and sunk boreholes in Oyo, Lagos, Imo, Cross River and other states. The IIRO has built more than 500 mosques and dug and sunk more than 900 wells and boreholes across Nigeria. We provide meat during Eid-el Kabir and sahur and iftar during Ramadan. Our health department provides health services like open heart surgery, urology, which we have not brought to Oyo State, and the free eye treatments. We have two hospitals in Kaduna which render free service, especially during Ramadan. We also provide relief for people who need real support in times of emergencies and disasters, like victims of Boko Haram insurgency. Right now, we have arranged reliefs for people in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps. And insha’Allah, as soon as the substantive director for the Nigeria office arrives in about a month’s time, we will visit six camps in Maiduguri, Borno State. We take care of the education, health and general wellbeing of about 9,000 orphans in Nigeria and we hope to increase the number to 20,000. In any of our facilities such as schools where people have to pay, the money is nothing compared to other places.
Does the IIRO have any plan to sponsor the free eye surgery again in Ibadan next year?
We do but if we cannot come to Oyo State, we might make arrangements to bring people from the state to Kaduna. Besides, there is a plan to establish an eye centre in Kaduna. It is going to be a permanent centre rather than seasonal eye treatment camps. A lot of states are going to benefit from the facility. Patients from states are going to be brought to the centre for eye treatment by way of quota. As it were, there are states who don’t know about this health intervention. As we speak, the cost of operating one eye for cataract is about N38,000. How many people in Nigeria today can afford that? But when this eye centre is established, a lot of Nigerians, people from such states, will get the operation free of charge.
We appeal to the Nigerian authorities to continue to help IIRO in its activities to support those Nigerians who cannot afford food let alone have access to healthcare.
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