An Islamic scholar, Dr. Harun Sanusi Lafiagi has assessed the increasing marrital home breaks and collapse marriages in Nigeria, describing it as disturbing and alarming.

Lafiagi, at the Ajase-Ipo, Kwara State annual Imams conference, organised by the Ogun State-based Daarul-S Sa’aadah Islamic centre, on Sunday, advised every central mosque in the country to set up counselling unit that would prioritise pre-marital, post-marital and general marital issues.

Noting that it is only when religious leaders wake-up to their duties and responsibility that the breaking home menaces can be checked, Lafiagi explained the extent to which the counselling units in the central mosques would go in saving marriages.

According to the orator of Al-Hikmah university Ilorin, it is high time central mosques instituted marrital counselling units that would be majorly concerned with advising prospective couples before, during and after marriages.

He urged Chief Imams across the country to rise to the general increasing breaking homes and collapse marriages, saying it is only when they rise to their roles that the troubling trend would stop.

Also, he urged the Chief Imams to always organise periodic workshops or conferences for youths, who are potential couples.

“They should organise this for them so that they are abreast of the roles, duties and responsibilities that they owe each other in marriage,” he charged.

Delivering his heart-rendering 48-minute lecture themeed: “imams and the Muslim home,” titled: “role of imams in sustaining muslim marriages and creating ideal Muslim homes,” Lafiagi lamented that most Imams have deliberately abandoned critical part of their primary societal roles that have led to the collapse of many homes.

“The abandonment by the Imams have unwittingly led to the collapse of the smallest unit of our country,” he said in part.”

He reminded imams to always ensure they deliver lectures that address societal ills, especially gambling, drug abuse, cultism, money rituals, and other vices in their Friday sermons, daily lectures, post-Salat lectures, and in their occasional lectures.

“They must ensure that their khutbah (sermon) topics are relevant to the happenings in society, and that what the khutbah centres on are contemporary in nature, and must be so explicit in such a way that it will be clear to all and sundry.

The sponsor of the annual event, Hajia Ramat Soliu Akansi, disclosed that she was moved to choose this year’s topic on realising the wreck many Muslim marriages found themselves, “we can see how most houses, most homes, are being destroyed by society, we just realised the need to inform people, to let people know what they should do.

“So, we pray that Allah will ensure that everyone who comes here this year learns one thing or the other that would change their direction and their hope,” she hoped.

Ths traditional ruler of Ajase-Ipo, Oba Ismail Alebiosu, agreed with the lecturer that the imams have either relaxed or lack knowledge of their roles as society builders, noting that: “it is pertinent that couples undergo marital counselling to be sure they know what they want to enter into, particularly as the rate of divorce these days is very, very alarming, and the Muslim Ummah is not happy about it.

“The lecturer has made us to know that  divorce should be the last thing, even though it is encouraged in Islam, but before they get to that stage, the imams have the obligation of making sure that they follow up every marriage they contract, it is this premarital and follow up counselling that has failed. Those are the major reasons that led to the failure of Muslim marriage in the Muslim Ummah.