2022 Hajj: How introduction of infamous policies by NAHCON led to failure of exercise – Danbatta

By Abdul Isah

The Executive Secretary of the Kano State Pilgrims Welfare Service Board, Ambassador Mohammad Abba Danbatta has given a detailed analysis of the circumstances that led to the failure of the last Hajj exercise across the country.

Speaking to SOLACEBASE, in Kano, Dambatta said the leading factors that led to the poor performance in the last exercise was late preparation from National Hajj Commission of Nigeria, NAHCON, and the limitation of the slots allotted to Nigeria to just 43000 by the Saudi authorities.

According to him, this happened when a state like Kano already had a backlog of at least 2500 intending pilgrims, from the canceled Hajj Calendar in 2020/2021 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Danbatta added that the allocation to the state last year was reduced to 2229, leaving the state with a huge gap.

The Executive Secretary of the state pilgrims board, also berated the operations of NAHCON for a number of infamous policies that further aggravated the already existing problem of how to manage the overwhelming number of pilgrims in the state.

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‘’Among those policies, he said, was the imposition of a carrier with no capacity to handle the airlifting of the passengers, even despite stiff resistance from the Kano State Government and the state pilgrims board.

Dambatta further chided the leadership of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria for restricting COVID-19 tests of all intending pilgrims in the state to a private hospital in Kano, despite the fact that the state has other health facilities with better capacities and a tertiary hospital, Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital.

He also noted that in previous exercises, the board was approved to prints over three thousand visas daily but the present NAHCON leadership restricted the printing and issuance of the travel papers to the commission’s headquarters in Abuja, which made it cumbersome.

He however, expressed optimism that with the early preparations this year as well as the increased slots allocated to Nigeria, this year’s Hajj operations will be hugely successful.

He also explained that abandoned pilgrims in the last year’s Hajj will be considered first, followed by those that made their payment on time, adding that the commission has already began the collection of N1.5 million deposit from intending pilgrims.

According to Danbatta, the state pilgrims’ board has already gotten the nod from the Kano State government to begin preparations for this year’s exercise in earnest.