The Muslim Ramadan month has ended. In it, Muslims demonstrated once again the need for sacrifice for the attainment of glory. Daily, they faced the practicability of self-denial a prelude to glory. Just as a woman goes through the challenges of pregnancy with the expectations of safe arrival of the baby, Muslims readily go through the sacrifices of Ramadan in anticipation of a place in eternity.

Ramadan is an admission that nothing comes easy in the relations between man and his maker. Sacrifices are part of life. The Muslim in the month of Ramadan accommodates hunger even where there is money and plenty to eat and drink.There is a lesson there: to feel how the less privileged cope so that he will have compassion for them.

During Ramadan, the Muslim abstains from worldly affairs including going in to his wife in daytime. The lesson here is to help him triumph over lust. He abstains from other pleasures and while going through the pangs of hunger daily, he appreciates what the poor suffer. The Muslim accentuates his prayer for this world and the hereafter. This enables him to be closer to his creator.

All these have wider implications for the nation. The sacrifices of those who fast should result in a caring nation with people who are willing to make sacrifice for the happiness of the majority.

Lust and greed are just two of the many enemies of this nation, conquering them helps to bring the country to the Promised Land. Of course, the Muslims have a responsibility for the peace, progress and prosperity of the country and we will prevail on them and followers of other religions to allow these lessons to stay with them. The lessons should become part of their lives and those who encounter them.

The Nigerian society will benefit from the lessons of Ramadan, if they do not end with the celebrations. Increases in greed and corruption are challenges the lessons of Ramadan should tackle, and it starts with the individual.Selfishness has reduced the conduct of Nigerians to a rat race in which the credo is each for himself and God for all of us. The strive for the individual's gain has resulted in the neglect of the common good, which to date hurts the common interests of Nigerians.

It should not be so. Everyone should be his brother’s keeper. That is one of the major lessons of Ramadan. The others are that the Almighty expects sobriety, purity and spartan conducts from those who follow Him.The Muslim, who does not imbibe the spirit of Ramadan and allow the lessons to reflect in his life, would have fasted in vain.
As Muslims troop to various praying grounds to give thanks to Allah and supplicate for His goodness, they must remember His goodness by providing for the less privileged, the deprived and the very poor among us, whose numbers are on the rise. Eid-Mubarak to all TIG Muslims members