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Hajj Pitfalls: The Adamawa Case By Zayyad I. Muhammad The fortunate Nigerian Pilgrims that made it to the holy land may now be preparing the journey back home with their hearts pondering to what awaits them at Jeddah Airport if the agonies and hell they went through at various hajj camps and airports in Nigeria before they left for Saudi Arabia is anything to go by, while the more than 12,000 that couldn’t made it are at their various homes meditating their experience of contact with a typical Nigerian system, a system that efficiency is unknown to it.
The general consensus among Nigerians is,
the recent stranding of pilgrims throughout the country’s Airports and
Hajj camps is due to shoddy preparations and official negligence at both
the national and state levels. But the case of Adamawa pilgrims who were
not able to travel to the holy land was peculiar; one Man denied them the
right to perform one of their religious duties, the chairman Adamawa State
Pilgrim’s Welfare Board, Alh. Yahya Abubakar exhibited two awful
characters: carelessness and bigheaded behaviors, even though, it was not
only this year Hajj that pilgrims complained about the Pilgrims Welfare
Board Chairman, it can simply be said the chairman had been frustrating
the good efforts Gov. Boni Haruna of Adamawa state in his pursuance of the
welfare of Hajj pilgrims. To avoid any hiccup from the part of state
authority, Gov. Boni Haruna approved an advance payment of money for all
pilgrims that have deposited money indicating their intention to perform
this year Hajj, but this have not help matters, as a day to the closing
date given by the Saudi authorities, two planes arrived Yola, but to the
dismay of many people, the chairman informed the airplanes company that
they are not ready, the planes have to be diverted to Sokoto, one left
Yola with only sixteen passengers and the other with only a few, it was
latter realized that the chairman was only holding pilgrims’ traveling
documents for reasons known only to him. This action has led to quite a
number of revelations of perpetual abysmal incompetence from the part of
the chairman Adamawa State Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Board; since 1999, Gov.
Boni Haruna has been providing the sum of 500 Saudi Riyals per pilgrim,
amounting to nearly For Nigeria to move away from such embarrassing situation of shoddy preparation for Hajj operation, the four stakeholders: the federal government, state governments, the airline companies and indeed the pilgrims have to change for the better. Those saddled with the responsibilities of Hajj preparations at the federal level especially the pilgrims affairs office most bring sanity to the system especially in the area of selecting airplanes, competent and reliable companies have to be contracted, not companies that operate in ‘proxy’ those that only exist on paper, and sincerity most be the hallmark in all activities regarding to a smooth hajj operations, to avoid such negative image that Nigeria is getting from the outside world, this writer is of the opinion, Saudi authorities should stop giving Nigeria the so-called grace time because it has been proved that Nigerian authorities only become serious when other nations threaten to take some punitive actions on certain irregularities in the country. States pilgrims’ boards are vital part of Hajj operations; state government should as a matter of urgency pay a critical attention to state pilgrims boards officials; owing to what happened in Adamawa, despite all the painstaking efforts of their Governor is seeing a smooth pilgrimage, the Adamawa pilgrims from Yola North and South were denied their right by one official. There is a growing call among observers that time has come for seasoned technocrats, bureaucrats and ullamas to be employ and take over the running of Hajj operations, but we most not forget that there are instances where politicians are performing creditably and the so-called technocrats are messing-up things. Equally, Nigerian pilgrims most call a halt from their disorderly and lawless conduct in the holy land. The task for a smooth and apt Hajj preparation most be escalated from all angles.
Zayyad I. Muhammad writes from Jimeta, Nigeria
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