The National Hajj Commission of Nigeria under Mr Zikirullah Kunle Hassan has withheld and squandered multimillion naira meant for refunds to 2022 and 2023 state pilgrims, investigations have shown.
Findings by this newspaper have uncovered how Zikirullah’s leadership refused to disburse these funds to the beneficiary states even after he collected the same.
Mr Zikirullah, who was appointed NAHCON chairman in January 2020, conducted 2022 and 2023 hajj operations and was sacked by President Bola Tinubu on October 18, 2023, after a four-year stint.
It was revealed that even in the few categories of refund he made in 2022 such as refunds for poor services or services not rendered at all, the former NAHCON boss had excluded some states, particularly those in the Southwest.
In October last year, the Southwest states of Lagos, Osun, Osun, Ekiti, Ondo and Oyo had to petition the new NAHCON chief executive Malam Jalal Ahmad Arabi, explaining how Mr Zikirullah “unjustifiably” excluded them from the refunds.
In a letter dated October 31, 2023, and titled: ‘2022 Hajj: Request for refund of unenjoyed Services in Masha’ir (Muna and Arafat) to states in the Southwest,” the executive secretaries accused Mr Zikrullah of “appropriately” refunding other states in the country, “leaving out states from Southwest without due justification for such.”
The petition was signed by pilgrims’ secretaries Alhaji D.B Salau (Ogun), Alhaji Onipede Saheed (Lagos), Alhaji Omoniyi Mohammed M (Ondo), Alhaji Egbeyemi Ishaq A (Ekiti), Alhaja Khadijat J. Olanipekun (Oyo), and Alhaji Murithadar Fakunle (Osun).
Categories of hajj refunds
Findings by this newspaper have shown that there are at least four types of refunds after every hajj operation. These include a refund to intending pilgrims who paid hajj fare but didn’t travel, a refund to pilgrims who travelled to hajj but returned using private means, a refund arising from penalties from erring service providers, and a refund for services not rendered or rendered unsatisfactorily.
Hajj officials from states and NAHCON told our reporters that Mr Zikirullah had withheld these refunds for 2022 and 2023 hajj operations. The commission under him, only announced N108 million as refunds for services not rendered or rendered poorly in 2022.
This newspaper recalls that in 2022 hajj, a paltry sum of 500,000 Saudi Riyals was refunded for poor or services not rendered, while insiders said the actual expected refund was about 12 million Saudi Riyals.
Despite that, Mr Zikirullah arbitrarily excluded the six states from the Southwest for reasons known to him, forcing the states to petition the commission a year later.
Findings by this newspaper revealed that the poor services or services not rendered at all category comprises feeding and accommodation in Makkah; feeding, accommodation, and number of days spent in Madinah; feeding, beddings, toiletries, cooling system, sanitation, and water supply in Masha’er (Muna and Arafat); feeding at Jeddah airport; transport routing – Madinah- Makkah-Jeddah, and Jeddah- Madinah- Makkah – Jeddah.
The Inspectorate, Evaluation and Compliance Unit of NAHCON, established in 2013 under the leadership of Muhammed Musa Bello, was responsible for monitoring and computing these refunds.
The intending pilgrims who paid but didn’t perform the hajj, comprise a refund for pilgrims who miss the Hajj due to medical screening, especially pregnant women; pilgrims who miss the Hajj due to ill- health; and lastly pilgrims who die before the airlift begins.
These categories were not refunded in 2022 and 2023 by Zikirullah and there was no money left for their refund at the time he was sacked. However, this category was fully refunded in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
When this newspaper checked the 2022 Hajj Annual Report submitted by NAHCON to the then President Muhammadu Buhari after the operation, Mr Zikirullah was silent on the refunds for services not rendered or poorly rendered. Instead, he wrote that “the computation of the refund was still ongoing.” In the 2023 Hajj Report submitted to President Bola Tinubu, NAHCON said the 2023 hajj refunds were still being computed. There was single no mention of what happened to the 2022 refunds.
In 2022, about 9,000 intending pilgrims were not airlifted to Saudi Arabia for hajj by NAHCON despite fulfilling all the requirements, even though some of them paid in 2019, while others paid in 2020, 2021 and 2022. And yet they were not refunded.
In the 2023 hajj, about 52,000 Nigerian pilgrims were stranded in Muna during the three days of camping. Mr Zikirullah told journalists then that only 43,000 capacity tents were provided to cater for 95,000 pilgrims from Nigeria, leaving over 52,000 pilgrims without adequate shelter during the peak hajj days. Yet these pilgrims were not refunded over six months after the hajj.
Another refund that was not paid was for the reduction of the number of days spent in Madinah. On June 8, 2023, Mr Zikirullah arbitrarily reduced the number of days pilgrims stay in Madinah to five days before Arafat, citing overcrowding. The number of days was further slashed to three, two and one after Arafat. However, pilgrims paid for eight days of accommodations and feeding in the Prophet’s city.
Not only that, even though pilgrims were charged for hotels in the highbrow Markaziyya area, more than half of them were accommodated outside the Markaziyya in 2023. It was the same story in Makkah where Nigerian pilgrims were sheltered in deplorable accommodations located in hilly areas far away from the Grand Mosque in Makkah. And fed with inadequate and poor quality ration. No refund has been made to these pilgrims yet.
In Jeddah, Mr Zikirullah introduced giving pilgrims food in takeaway packs right from Makkah on their way to Jeddah airport, instead of feeding pilgrims fresh meals on arrival at Jeddah. There were no NAHCON staff on the ground to supervise the entire process – to ensure quality and quantity. More worrisome was the fact that though less than one-third of the pilgrims were giving that food, the contractor was paid 100 percent. There is no refund yet.
Southwest cries over 2022 refunds
This newspaper recalled that a total of 42,000 Nigerian pilgrims (30,000 through states and 12,000 through private tour operators) performed the hajj in 2022, which like that of 2023, was marred by multifaceted challenges ranging from airlift, accommodation, feeding, local transport, among others.
In 2022, the six states of the Southwest had a total of 3,422 pilgrims: Lagos (1,562), Osun (460), Ogun (497), Ondo (191), Ekiti (83), and Oyo (629).
The Southwest executive secretaries’ letter reads, “We wish to humbly draw your attention to the above-mentioned subject matter and to request payment for refund due to our states in Southwest as done to other states.
“For your information sir, during the 2022 Hajj exercise, States Pilgrims Boards/Agencies/Commissions complained bitterly about poor services rendered by Saudi Arabia-appointed service providers at Masha’ir (Muna and Arafat) and the same were [sic] communicated to the Saudi government accordingly for refund. Thereafter, NAHCON duly informed the States’ Pilgrims Boards/Agencies/Commissions that Saudi Arabia had made a refund with respect to the unenjoyed services rendered.
“To the surprise of the States in the Southwest, we discovered that some states in other parts of the country had been refunded appropriately for the services not enjoyed, leaving out states from the Southwest without due justification for such.
“It is on this note that we hereby write to kindly request for refund due to each state in the Southwest on the basis of equity and transparency in accordance with parameters used in calculating those states already refunded.
“While congratulating you on your appointment as the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of the commission and wishing you a fruitful tenure, kindly look into our case on the basis of just, equity and transparency.”
Stakeholders call for probe
Hajj stakeholders have called for a thorough probe of the Zikirullah’s tenure, to unravel the circumstances leading to the disappearance of the refunds.
An official of the commission told this newspaper that the 2022 and 2023 hajj refunds were part of the cases being investigated by the anti-graft agencies, notably the EFCC.
Another staff of the hajj agency, who spoke in confidence said, the non-remittance of hajj refunds, among other mundane issues under the Zikirullah’s regime, “is making the states look at NAHCON with suspicion. We are facing an integrity crisis because of that issue and many others. Anti-graft agencies need to probe his tenure and establish the whereabouts of the fund and punish whoever is found guilty,” the top official said.
NAHCON speaks
However, the spokesperson of the commission, Fatima Sanda Usara, said the commission under Mr Zikirullah had paid up the 2022 hajj refunds to qualified states.
She said, “Those states with genuine cases were paid.” Mrs Usara’s position was contradicted by the Southwest executive secretaries. The ES have individually confirmed to our reporters that they didn’t receive any refunds, which was the basis for petitioning the new NAHCON chief Mr Arabi.
The Lagos ES, Mr Saheed, confirmed that the state has not been refunded yet. In a text message, he said, “No, we’ve not received any refund.”
His counterpart in Ogun, Mr Salau also confirmed to our reporter that his state didn’t get any refund.
Mrs Usara explained that some states deliberately don’t fill the funds for refunds, where they do, they leave the space meant for describing the quality of services blank. ‘That is one of the challenges we are facing. Some of these states only come up with claims after they see genuine states being paid,” she said.
This newspaper has cited an undated and unsigned ‘CBN Mandate’ purportedly for the payment of “Masha’er Feeding Refund” to 12 that include four Southwest states. The document didn’t indicate the amount paid to the states or any evidence to show that the states have received such monies.
