The National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) has finally released the stranded Nasarawa State pilgrims to Jeddah airport enroute Nigeria after spending 47 days in Saudi Arabia.
This is coming about 24 hours after 21st CENTURY CHRONICLE’s exclusive story on the agony of the stranded pilgrims who have exhausted their BTAs.
The pilgrims were the first batch of Nigerian contingents airlifted to the holy land on May 25, 2023 through the national inaugural flight in Abuja.
This newspaper confirmed that the pilgrims are currently at the King Abdulaziz International Airport Hajj Terminal Wing in Jeddah as at the time of filing this report.
This newspaper reported how the Nigeria’s first flight pilgrims had to send an SoS to Vice President Kashim Shettima and Governor Abubakar Sule of Nasarawa state to come to their rescue.
Findings have shown that this is the first time that the NAHCON’s age-long policy of “first-in, first-out” was discarded by the commission.
The commission had transported over 7,000 pilgrims in 18 flights back to Nigeria – all ahead of the Nasarawa pilgrims who should been the first to return home.
NAHCON Commissioner for Operations Abdullahi Magaji Hardawa, in a press conference in Makkah on Saturday, reiterated the commission’s erroneous justification of abandoning the Nasarawa pilgrims on the inability of their assigned airline – Aero Contractors – to secure slot from Saudi General Authority for Civil Aviation (GACA).
He said Sokoto pilgrims were first to be airlifted back to Nigeria because their assigned airline, Flynas, has got all its slots for the return airlift.
However, findings by this newspaper has picked holes in Mr Hardawa’s arguments. Contrary to his submission, the inaugural flight is a national flight, not an hajj airline’s maiden flight, and that is why it was titled: “2023 National Inaugural Flight” by the commission.
This is evident when Aero Contractors, assigned to airlift Nasarawa pilgrims, failed to deploy an aircraft for the inaugural flight scheduled for May 25, 2023. NAHCON had to deploy Max Air to airlift the pilgrims to ensure that the national inaugural flight – usually operated with fanfare – was conducted as scheduled.
The NAHCON operations chief’s narratives also raised questions about the commission’s adherence to the pre-qualification conditions it set for airlines which include, among others, that all airlines must have verifiable slots from GACA for inbound and outbound airlifts.
Findings by this newspaper revealed that if NAHCON had adhered to its pre-qualification guidelines, many of the airlines wouldn’t have been approved, and thousands of pilgrims like those of Nasarawa state wouldn’t have been left stranded.
Some of the conditions outlined by NAHCON for qualification for license for pilgrims airlift for 2023 hajj include:
“Verifiable evidence of ability to make available reliable flight schedule for the operation not less than eight (8) weeks before commencement of the airlift.”
Some of the aggrieved Nasarawa’s pilgrims, in an interview with this newspaper in Jeddah, had accused NAHCON of double-standard.
Alhaji Yusuf Muhammad said “NAHCON’s justification of our ill-treatment is obnoxious and callous. Can you imagine: NAHCON deployed Max Air to pick us during inaugural flight but refused deploy another aircraft to take us back home? This is callous. Why didn’t NAHCON wait for Aero Contractors to get slot to airlift us to Saudi Arabia when coming to the hoody land? Why did it deploy Max Air to rescue us? Is it because they want to use us as pawns in their national show? We will never forgive them for this ill-treatment.”
Another pilgrim, Hajiya Samira , said “Nasarawa pilgrims did all they could to ensure NAHCON conducted its national inaugural flight successfully. We were available when no state was ready. On our way from Lafia to Abuja, one of our vehicles was involved in an accident with five of the intending pilgrims badly injured. Five of the intending pilgrims are still nursing their wounds after in Nigeria after missing the hajj. Despite all these sacrifices, the hajj commission has the guts to keep us stranded and blame the air carrier they arbitrarily assigned to us for our delay. This is not fair and God is watching.”
The pilgrims also expressed their bitterness over the total absence and lack of visibility of the immediate past chairman of House of Representatives Committee on Hajj, who is from Nasarawa state, while they were suffering.
They accused the National Commissioner representing North-central for her indifference towards their plight, and condemned the “shoddy job” superintended by the National Commissioner in charge of Aviation in selecting the hajj airlines.
Some of the pilgrims have fingered elements of politics into the operation. “We were treated badly because we were not from the Southwest. I don’t think NAHCON will treat an inaugural flight pilgrims this way if they were from any of the Southwest states. This is unfair, particularly in a religious duty like hajj.”
This newspaper learned that though NAHCON had concluded plans to evacuate the first flight pilgrims, it didn’t provide any schedule for the second, third, fourth and fifth flights from Nasarawa state.
An official of the state who doesn’t want to be named said after the inaugural flight pilgrims were sent to Jeddah (as of the time of this interview), but nobody is talking to us about the second and third flights that were airlifted to Saudi Arabia on 26 and 27 of May. This is not to talk of the fourth and fifth flights of May 29 and 30. This is pathetic.”
It was observed that despite repeated denials, hajj stakeholders have concluded that the leadership of the commission has totally disregarded its policy of first-in, first-out in this year’s operation, thereby deepening schism in the hajj ecosystem.
A hajj veteran from Kano State, who has been involved in hajj operations since 1980s said, “this is the first time in the history of hajj in Nigeria, as far as I know, that pilgrims of the first flight would spend five days in Saudi Arabia after the beginning of return flight and evacuation of about 7,000 other pilgrims back home.”
Having described this year’s hajj as the worst in recent past, he also debunked claims suggesting that the 2023 hajj was marred by challenges because of the large number of pilgrims that attended the pilgrimage.
The hajj veteran said, “I am appalled by the sheer absurdity that 2023 hajj was messy for Nigerians because of the large number of pilgrims (2.3 million) that attended it. This claim is not revkkess but bereft of any minutest reasoning.
He said “it was on record that the largest ever hajj in history was in 2012, when 3.116 million pilgrims attended. The second largest is that of 2011 when 2.9 million pilgrims performed the hajj. The third largest was 2010 hajj that accommodated 2.8 million pilgrims.”
“The truth is: Our pilgrims suffered not because of any reason but sheer negligence by NAHCON leadership, coupled with the leaderhip’s gross ineptitude and prebendal power-play. All these crude tendencies have seamlessly metamorphosed into the global show of shame that Nigeria recorded in this year’s hajj,” the hajj veteran told this newspaper from Makkah.
