The National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) has cancelled pilgrims’ flights to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday due to a shortage of accommodation in Madinah, Islam’s second-holiest city.
This newspaper has learned from insiders that poor arrangements and administrative lapses within the commission are responsible for the accommodation crisis in Madinah.
Nigerian pilgrims from Kwara state protested in Ilorin on Tuesday afternoon. They had been left stranded at the Hajj camp since Saturday.
The pilgrims complained that they were initially instructed to report to the camp on Saturday for a Sunday departure, and ever since, the state pilgrim board officials have been shifting the departure dates endlessly.
This newspaper gathered that the pilgrims are expected to spend at least four days, as against the historical tradition of eight days known for Nigerian pilgrims, before proceeding to Makkah, Islam’s holiest city.
It was revealed during Barr Zikirullah Kunle Hassan’s tenure that the commission introduced the reduction from eight to four days, which he inherited, due to his administrative inefficiency.
Despite denying pilgrims the 40 days of daily prayers at the Prophet’s mosque, that decision has remained. The policy continued during Ahmad Jalal Arabi’s administration and is now sustained by Professor Abdullahi Saleh Usman.
Flights for pilgrims from the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Kebbi, and Kaduna were cancelled on Tuesday “because there are no accommodations for the pilgrims when they come to Madinah,” a NAHCON official said in confidence.
Checks at the departure centres revealed that pilgrims were unhappy over the delay, having spent over 24 hours at the camps.
A senior official stated that the commission has been grappling with the accommodation crisis for over a week, despite securing additional hotels.
Multiple sources in Abuja and Saudi Arabia informed reporters that the commission has “secured four additional hotels in Madinah to augment the shortage. But the situation persists due to poor organisation and administrative lapses.”
Some additional hotels rented include Thaiba Suites and Movenpick. Another insider said hiring additional hotels is done outside the approved Saudi authorities’ digital payment platforms.
Insiders disclosed that the problem chiefly arose from NAHCON engaging two accommodation providers who are known for alleged fraudulent activities in the past and were blacklisted for rendering poor services during Barr Abdullahi Mukhtar Muhammad’s administration.
However, the blacklisted accommodation providers were reportedly brought back by the Zikirullah’s administration through questionable means.
A female pilgrim from Kebbi informed one of our reporters by telephone that they have been stranded in Madinah since their arrival on Monday night.
“We left Nigeria around 4 pm and arrived in Madinah around 10 pm yesterday (Monday). Since then, we have not been given accommodation. There is confusion everywhere. It has never been this bad. This is the first time I am experiencing this apparent lack of coordination and efficiency in Madinah,” said the lady, who has performed Hajj for the last 10 years.
This newspaper gathered that the commission’s inability to accommodate the Kebbi pilgrims for nearly 24 hours may have forced it to cancel further flights from Nigeria on Tuesday.
The flight cancellation was communicated verbally from NAHCON aviation officials to the approved Hajj airlines around 2 am on Tuesday.
“This verbal directive further compounded the chaos because our flight was already returning from Saudi Arabia. When we alerted them, they said they were not officially informed,” one of the airline’s officials, who wished to remain anonymous due to not being authorised to speak, told one of our reporters on Tuesday.
Findings by this newspaper revealed that the confusion was exacerbated by NAHCON’s transportation of pilgrims to the holy land without proper documentation in line with the NUSUK car system.
“The Madinah chaos was caused by Nigerian flights arriving with manifests inconsistent with the Saudi Arabian NUSUK platform data. That is the source of the confusion.
The flight manifests vary with the pilgrims’ data on the NUSUK platform. This affects everything, including accommodation, transport, and even Masha’ir services in Mina, Arafat, and Muzdalifah,” a senior official at the commission said.
The senior official acknowledged that “the lapses are all ours (NAHCON). That is the fact. You can’t expect the Saudis to accept pilgrims whose data in the flight manifest doesn’t correspond with the earlier registration in the NUSUK platform.”
The official added that the Saudi officials are “very angry with Nigeria over this issue. They feel that we are trying to sabotage their NUSUK system. I don’t know how this will end.”
Another challenge facing Nigerian pilgrims in Madinah is the total absence of Nigerian clinics. “Even though NAHCON has airlifted dozens of medical team members to Madinah, they are just idling away doing nothing because they couldn’t set up a single clinic due to a lack of a license from the Saudi authorities,” another official stated.
The absence of clinics is taking its toll on Nigerian pilgrims, as they have nowhere to go for their medical needs.
