The Forum of Chief Executive Officers of State Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Boards, Agencies, and Commissions has raised an alarm that thousands of Nigerian intending pilgrims may not perform the 2025 Hajj because the Chairman of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON), Professor Abdullahi Saleh Usman, cancelled the Masha’ir contract.
The forum‘s secretary and Executive Secretary of Adamawa State Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Board, Abubakar Salihu, who spoke on behalf of the forum, raised the alarm in an interview with journalists on Sunday.
The forum comprises the chief executives of all the State Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Boards, Agencies, and Commissions in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Mr Salihu said the NAHCON chairman’s purported cancellation of the contract signed with Saudi service provider Mashariq AL-Dhahabiah may deny Nigerians visas for the 2025 Hajj, barring them from the Muslim holy pilgrimage.
“It has become necessary and expedient to inform the general public that should Nigerian intending pilgrims miss out on the 2025 Hajj; they should hold the NAHCON chairman responsible. They should not blame the state pilgrims‘ boards. The NAHCON chairman should be blamed,” the forum’s secretary said.
Mr Salihu lamented that “it is unfortunate that after painstakingly selecting and signing Masha’ir’s contract agreement with Mashariq Al-Dhahabiah, the NAHCON chairman single-handedly cancelled the contract via electronic portal.”
He said the cancellation of the Masha’ir contracts “would deny Nigerian pilgrims access to process their visa in the Saudi E-Tract platform, thereby denying them the right to perform Hajj which they have paid for.”
The forum secretary explained that the forum leadership met with NAHCON executives between January 15 – and 17 to select Mashariq Al-Dhahabiah to serve state quota pilgrims in Muna, Arafat and Muzdalifah. The selected Rawaf Mina will serve VIP pilgrims.
“After the meeting, NAHCON signed the contract and gave the service provider the go-ahead to execute it. Mashariq Al-Dhahabiah reflected the contact information on various Saudi Arabian Hajj agencies‘ platforms. – that includes NUSUK and E-Tract,” he said.
He said, “It is appalling to just wake up and realise that the Hajj commission chairman has cancelled the contracts we worked on and approved without recourse to us. This is unacceptable.”
The forum wondered why NAHCON would allow the tour operators, with less than 20 per cent of Nigerian pilgrims, to pick a service provider of their choice and denied the states, with over 80 per cent of the 95,000 pilgrims, to select their option.
He said the chairman’s action implies that “our pilgrims cannot access their visa in the E-Tract uploaded by Mashariq Al-Dhahabiah henceforth. And even if NAHCON engages another service provider now, the new service provider can’t access the E-Tract platform.”
Mr Salihu said Mashariq Al-Dhahabiah would certainly seek arbitration for violating the contract agreements it signed with Nigeria, which may jeopardise Nigerian pilgrims‘ participation in the 2025 Hajj.
He said the service provider was selected from five others after three days of thorough and careful cost and material analysis. He said the state pilgrims boards rejected Ithraa Al Khair, a service provider that shortchanged Nigerian pilgrims and rendered poor services to them in 2022, 2023 and 2024, despite efforts to impose it on them.
Mashariq Al-Dhahabiah is a veteran service provider whose chairman and management team provided excellent services to Nigerian pilgrims between 2015 to 2019.
The state pilgrims‘ boards and NAHCON’s selection of Mashariq Al-Dhahabiah have secured a $200 reduction for each pilgrim in the Hajj fare.
Based on the contracts signed with service providers, NAHCON was expected to make payments as soon as it uploaded funds to its portal.
About 50,000 Nigerians are expected to perform this year’s Hajj under the state quota, with another quarter of that number under the tour operators quota.
This newspaper gathered that the NAHCON chairman is on his way to Saudi Arabia to appoint another shoddy service provider that has never served African pilgrims, let alone Nigeria’s — to the detriment of Nigerian pilgrims.
Another commission official who spoke in confidence said petitions have already been sent to investigative agencies to probe the contract cancellation. He urged the Attorney General and Minister of Justice Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, to intervene in this Masha’ir contract saga to save Nigeria from the P&ID and Mambilla/Sunrise- like scandals and embarrassment.
When contacted, the spokesperson of the Hajj commission, Fatima Sanda Usara, couldn’t comment because she wasn’t briefed on the issue.
