The Forum of Chief Executive Officers of State Muslim Pilgrims Boards/Agencies/Commissions has rejected Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed’s demand for decentralisation of Hajj services.
Citing perceived shortcomings, Governor Mohammed last week called for decentralisation, so as to allow state governments take full control of affairs of pilgrims who paid through their respective pilgrims’ Welfare Board.
Deputy Chairman of the Forum, Alhaji Farouk Aliyu Yaro announced the rejection on Friday night, while responding to questions during a press briefing on the resolution reached from members’ meeting on the just concluded 2024 Hajj.
Speaking in the midst of the Forum’s Chairman Alhaji Idris Almakura and other members, the Deputy Chairman said that the call for the decentralisation and abolition of the NAHCON has no basis.
Yaro , who doubles as the Executive Chairman of the Kebbi State Pilgrims Welfare Agency said the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a standing policy of engaging with countries across the world on Hajj operations but not with States.
“No State has the power to deal directly with the Saudi Ministry of Hajj and Umrah or any other Saudi authority in the conduct of Hajj operations except NAHCON. The policy has not in any way given any state such a right to deal directly with Saudi.
“Therefore, the call to abolish NAHCON and decentralise Hajj operations has no basis.
“We should not allow our emotions to affect the overall interest of pilgrims, policy and global guideline of Hajj operation”, Yaro cautioned.
He added: “Like every other country in the world, Saudi policy vested the responsibility on the NAHCON, which represents the entire states in Nigeria in provision of visa and other international travel policies for pilgrims.
“The 2024 Hajj operation under the current leadership of NAHCON has recorded over 85% success which is okay. We have confidence in the Commissions’ ability to even improve on that.
“We should not always expect things to work our way. What is expected of us is to give constructive advice to NAHCON on any lapses we might have observed, and not to condemn the whole system that has performed creditably well.
“We are calling on our leaders to look at the overall achievements of NAHCON and not to single out a minor fault”.
Chairman of the Forum, Al-Makura in his address, said the body just met where it did a post-mortem of the 2024 Hajj and came out with some resolutions in order to let the whole world know what happened in 2024 Hajj.
He pointed out that the Forum commended NAHCON for the early processing and approval of visas for pilgrims.
According to him, this is the first time the States’ pilgrims got visas between two and three weeks before the outbound flights commenced.
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The Chairman acknowledged that it was noteworthy that NAHCON was able to process the visas of Nigerian pilgrims in record time.
Al-Makura who doubles as the Executive Secretary of Nasarawa State Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Board noted with admiration that all pilgrims from all States stayed an equal number of days in Madinah and the NAHCON facilitated entrance into the Rawdah.
He added: “This is commendable and the Forum encourages NAHCON to sustain this.
“The airlifts of the pilgrims from Nigeria to the KSA were commended and we hope and believe the inbound airlifts will be as good and smooth as the outbound.”
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