The rise of commercial air travel helped push the Nigerian hajj from being a global experience into a markedly national one. Whereas prior to this development Nigerian pilgrims had trekked across colonial borders and mingled with diverse populations between Kano and Jeddah, now pilgrims could leave home in a chartered flight with fellow citizens, and remain with this national group throughout their entire pilgrimage. This streamlined itinerary also enabled enhanced control of pilgrim mobility by the Nigerian government. Yet if global transformations in transportation helped bring nationalized uniformity to the hajj, increased global connectivity and capital sowed division by injecting the hajj with sectarian debate and a sense of moral instability.
The paper examines this tension in the emergence in Nigerian popular culture of the “corrupt pilgrim” in the mid-1960s to 1970s. The paper traces the emergence of the idiom of the “corrupt pilgrim” in political commentary and popular culture, which surfaced in such varied genres as cartoons, music, advertisements and fashion. Whereas pilgrimage traditionally bestowed unquestionable prestige upon an individual, this new “corrupt pilgrim” was greedy, lacked piety, and tarnished Nigeria’s reputation abroad. Previous scholarship has astutely argued that the rapid injection of petrodollars gave rise to a new elite class and rumors about nefarious activities lying behind this sudden individual wealth. The popularized figure of the “corrupt pilgrim” demonstrates that the performance of piety underwent a similar, oil-derived distortion, in a highly gendered fashion.