By Brave Dickson
The Muslims in Rivers State have used this year’s Eid-el-Kabir to thank Governor Nyesom Wike for exempting those that are into the small and medium enterprises from paying tax for the year 2020 as part of COVID-19 tax palliative.
The Rivers State Sole Administrator, Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Board, Alhaji Abdulrazak Deprieye made this known to newsmen shortly after their Eid prayer at the Rivers State Central Mosque, Port Harcourt.
He said: “I want to use this medium to thank Governor Nyesom Wike on behalf of the Muslims for the tax palliative on SMEs.
” We are all aware that the governor recently relieved small and medium enterprises of taxes for the year 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“And a lot of our Muslim brothers and sisters who are into businesses fall under such scheme.
“So, we thank the governor for such benevolence which he has shown to us and we see it as Eid gift to the Muslims.
“As Muslims in the state, we have been enjoying strict religious tolerance, good business environment and we thank the governor so much.”
Performing the ram slaughtering, the Chief Imam of the Rivers State, Central Mosque, Alhaji Malik Yahya said: “The ram slaughtering is in commemoration of our father (Ibrahim) when he was about sacrificing his son (Ismaili) and Allah commanded His angel to bring a ram to prophet Ibrahim for slaughtering in obedience to Allah.
“We commemorate that act of gratitude and humbleness that prophet Ibrahim demonstrated to our Almighty Allah.
” Secondly, by sacrificing, we are glorifying Allah by being thankful to Him for keeping us alive.
“I enjoin all Muslims to be totally submissive to the service of Allah and avoid anything that will spoil our relationship with Allah.
“We have to return sovereignty to Allah and allow only Him to tell us what to do and what not to do.”
