By Muhammad Abba Abdullahi
Now that the 2022 hajj has come and gone, it is only proper to do a post-mortem of the exercise.
The conduct of the Hajj exercise in Nigeria involved the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON), the State governments’ pilgrims welfare agencies, the Travel Agents, the pilgrims themselves, on the one hand, and the Saudi Authorities, on the other.
In trying to do an objective ex-tray of the processes leading up to the conduct of the hajj exercise, a number of extraneous factors need to be considered, key among which is the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic of the year 2019.
Since the outbreak of that pandemic, this is the first post COVID-19 hajj, and naturally, it came with a number of attendant challenges that were the natural consequences of the global pandemic.
For the regulating body, the National Hajj Commission, NAHCON, the first major challenge was how to deal with the problems of sorting out the intending pilgrims who could not perform the 2020 and 2021 hajj, as a result of the ban placed on foreign travels around the globe because of the impact of the COVID -19 pandemic
From records, about fifty thousand intending pilgrims, had paid for the hajj in 2019 but couldn’t perform the religious acts as a result of the closure of the Haramain, the two grand holy mosques in Makkah and Madinah, to foreign pilgrims.
Some had their monies refunded, while majority preferred to wait for the next hajj opportunity. They had decided to augment the fare to meet up with the new rates that may be announced by the National Hajj Commission, if they were slightly higher.
The NAHCON also faced the problem of handling new intending pilgrims, who had also paid and were prepared to make the journey to the Holly land.
Meanwhile, unknown to them, the hajj allocation to Nigeria could not adequately cover all the intending pilgrims of 2021 and 2022, thus posing a big challenge for the Hajj Commission to handle.
A number of pilgrims who were caught up in this situation couldn’t be persuaded to shelf their journey to the holy land and this created a serious challenges to the state’s pilgrims welfare boards and the NAHCON.
The Commission rose to the challenge by engaging the Federal Government to press for additional slots from the Saudi Authorities to accommodate all the intending pilgrims from Nigeria.
Under the prevailing situation, the Hajj Commission did all within its ability to ensure that all intending pilgrims were flown to Saudi Arabia for this year’s hajj.
Unfortunately, however, some intending pilgrims missed the hajj because of the diplomatic issues, non issuance of visa to intending pilgrims and other logistics problems that combined to frustrate all the Commission’s efforts in getting all the pilgrims airlifted to the holy land.
While, this could be said to be the low point of the Commission’s handling of this year’s hajj, the main hajj activities were a resounding success.
Pilgrims were well accommodated and given almost first class treatments with good and efficient transportation to and from holy sites and prompt medical attention as occasions demanded.
This year’s hajj was generally adjudged as very well conducted by the NAHCON and the state officials who served as guides to the Nigerian pilgrims throughout their stay in the holy land.
Nigerian pilgrims demonstrated very high sense of discipline and good conduct to the admiration of other nationals and the Saudi Authorities.
Since the commencement of the return flights of pilgrims back home, there were no reports of untoward incidents, as the operations went smoothly.
However, despite all the unforeseen and avoidable challenges, the 2022 hajj operation was an exercise the National Hajj Commission can loudly say, To God Be The Glory.
Muhammad Abba Abdullahi wrote from Sokoto. He can be reached at: sahabisanyinnawal@gmail.com
