By Usman Bakare
Flashback to July 2024 in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. At a time when NAHCON’s inbound team was neck-deep in dispatching Nigerian pilgrims back to the country, the rest of the NAHCON family, on the other hand, had already commenced the 2025 Hajj operation.
In one of their marathon meetings that lasted late into the night in their Ummul Jud office, NAHCON reviewed and adopted the calendar of events, Nigeria’s Hajj manual for the coming year, setting the pace for the commencement of the groundwork.
From Ummul Jud, an advertisement calling for complaints by dissatisfied pilgrims was awarded to selected newspapers in Nigeria. The reason for releasing the advert early was to facilitate quick reconciliation and quick release of caution deposits to Private Tour Operators and refunds to State Pilgrims’ Welfare boards which will set the tone for the 2025 Hajj preparations. Under the Hajj operational system, reconciliation and refunds cannot take place until after the expiration of the 30-day period of the advert placement.
The Commission could have waited until returning to Nigeria before placing the call for complaint, the idea of doing so early was to reduce the wait time to make the possibility of refunds mature quickly after return.
In July, the then Head of NAHCON, Malam Jalal Ahmed Arabi led a select team of NAHCON staff to the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah on a 2025 Hajj fact-finding mission. It was a Hajj planning mission, to directly ascertain those leaps the Commission could take with regard to 2025 Hajj arrangements. The team came back excited, as they said, with a better understanding of Saudi’s expectations and a willing leader to steer the onward movement.
The then NAHCON Chairman had three immediate agendas to execute after our return to the country. One was the post-Hajj press briefing; another was a post-Hajj retreat for review of the 2024 Hajj and a third was the placement of an advert inviting applications by interested air carriers for the 2025 Hajj.
Unlike the earlier advert, this invitation requires a six-week lifespan in the public domain before action could be taken, they said. To reduce the wait time and fast-tract quick selection of airlines to tally with the Saudi timeline, the wisest thing to do was to send the invitation early while other things were going on. Other things such as preparations for payment to the carriers etc.
Of the three immediate plans, only the press briefing could take place before what happened, happened. Ever since, NAHCON had remained in a trance; a manifestation of the power of instability.
This recap was inspired by a beautiful expository piece written and published by Ibrahim Mohammed of Independent Hajj Reporters on 6th November 2024 and titled Preparation for Hajj 2025 and Tale of “What Happened in 1992”. The piece is a wake-up call to all Hajj industry players in Nigeria.
Until they see this industry as their project to collectively nurture and protect, tale-tellers with a motif will continue to screw the Nigerian Hajj system, derailing it- until we remain awing with mouth agape at the feat other countries have attained.
Recall that NAHCON was established close to 20 years ago by President Olusegun Obasanjo to sanitise the system from abuse and various unethical practices that were negatively affecting pilgrims and denting the country’s image overseas.
The birth of NAHCON hence ebbed dozens of fraudulent businesses leeching on the industry out of the game. Those corruptible agents that once fed fat on the industry would predictably waylay the licit industry players for any chance for a comeback, including blackmail, treachery and outright defamation.
This can explain the constant distractive vibes often being transmitted to the media to degrade the Commission’s various leaderships. And which the public fails to use a third eye to decipher.
Alhaji Zikrullah Kunle Hassan did not escape it, neither did Barrister Abdullahi Mukhtar Muhammad, the one who has proven to be the lion so far. What gave Barrister Mukhtar the edge was his age-long mastery of the Hajj industry’s terrain plus his ability to identify the landmines deliberately scattered to entrap the players.
Until the Hajj public can distinguish vice from virtue, and mischief from merit, media trials created around Hajj managers would continue to pull down the industry to make way for old gamers to return.
With what we knew about Hajj operations in Nigeria before the establishment of NAHCON, why would any Muslim or administrator vow to dismantle the Commission and return it to the hands it used to be with some openly campaigning for scrapping of NAHCON? When pilgrims begged for mercy from any available helper within and outside Nigeria? Saudi Arabia has moved on and those countries that have realised this are those gaining from the new system.
The Kingdom conducts country-to-country engagements and those countries that understand the wisdom of centralising their resources are those swimming in surpluses. This helps them get their calculations right ahead of deadlines notwithstanding Saudi’s changing policies.
NAHCON was established to avoid the yearly “sharp-sharp” committees of “any-how-ness” that were raised in the past to organise each Hajj season. With so many detractions over the years, perhaps deliberately timed— we are gradually going back to the years of the fire brigade approach to Hajj preparations.
Politicians will play their politics, and they will need our naive support to pull down the industrious leaderships that would not align to their games. Please public, let us avoid being the quicksand into which politicians bury dedicated leaders in the Hajj industry by exposing them to unsubstantiated media trials. NAHCON leaders should always be above board: learn from Mukhtar.
Usman Bakare Olalekan is a writer and blogger based in Abuja @usmbakaola19@hotmail