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A speaker addresses people at a seminar for women on financial empowerment, hosted by the Nasrul-Lahi-il-Fathi Society of Nigeria, NASFAT. The organisation is based on economic empowerment and prosperity with an Islamic spin. What started with about a dozen members in the 1990s, NASFAT now has 1.2 million members in Nigeria and branches in 25 other countries. The organisation has an entrepreneurship program, a clinic, a prison-outreach program, a task force to address HIV/AIDS, a travel agency, and a soft-drink company called Nasmalt, whose profits go to the poor. 'We are competing for faithfuls,' NASFAT's executive secretary, Zikrullah Kunle Hassan, said one blistering Sunday. 'Many people now want God. This is happening especially among the youth, that they feel they need to be committed to faith.'
Seamus Murphy/Panos Pictures /Felix Features 9 Sep 2007