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Cheating Kano Pilgrims In the name of God; An Open Letter to Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau By Tanko Muhammad Danbaba If you are paying for the Muslim pilgrimage in Kano this year, the year 1428 after Hijra, equivalent to 2007 in the Gregorian calendar you must have paid either N446, 631.40 or N356, 631.40. Whatever you paid I am not sure you have had the privilege of being told what the breakdown of what you paid is supposed to be. In case you have being told and you don’t know the full implications of what you paid, let me now tell you the full implications. The dollar cost implications for each pilgrim is $2, 103.97 (two thousand one hundred and three dollars, ninety-seven cents) inclusive of $20.83 as one per cent bank charges. This covers airfares, accommodation in Makkah and Madinah, royalty, united agents fees, tent security and one per cent bank charges. The air carriers receive $1,300 or N156, 000 of the pilgrims fees, accommodation in Makkah Mukarramah paid to landlords is $374.33 or N44, 919.60 from each pilgrim, Madinah landlords get $53.47 or N6, 416.40, united agents fees are $275 or N33, 000 for transportation, Mina Arafat tents and other related services while the Mu’assasah takes $1.34 or N160 from each pilgrim for tent security. The dollar exchange rate for the Naira used by the Kano State Pilgrims Welfare Board (KSPWB) is $1 to N120. The total minimum BTA is N90, 000 for hujjaj paying N356, 631.40 while those paying N446, 631.40 are to enjoy the higher BTA of N180,000. Minus the BTA each pilgrim’s $2, 103.97 plus the various sums charged by the pilgrims’ board for passport, suitcase, uniform, admin charges, hajj guide booklets, cassettes, transport from camp to airport and back cumulatively translates to N266,631.40. Details of the various local charges you pay as a pilgrim if you plan to go for the hajj through the KSPWB are passport, N850; suitcase N4,500; uniform, N2,000; admin charges (Kano State Pilgrims Welfare Board, KSPWB), N2,000; admin charges (NAHCON) N1,000; hajj guide – booklet/cassette, transportation from camp to airport and back to camp, N3,805. In total there are seven thousand (7,000) Kano state pilgrims paying through the KSPWB according to the Board’s powerful executive secretary, Alhaji Sani Lawan Kofar-Mata, a retiring civil servant/politician who had served Kano state for decades as an accountant before his current appointment as KSPWB Executive secretary by Kano’s Governor Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau. If you calculate the sums paid by each of Kano state’s 7,000 pilgrims that go to the KSPWB this amounts to N99,085,000 (ninety-nine million, eighty-five thousand naira) because each pilgrim’s contribution to KSPWB inclusive of the N1,000 that goes to the federal agency, NAHCON as admin charges is N14,155. The N1,000 paid to the NAHCON amounts to N7,000,000. This year if there are only seven thousand pilgrims that KSPWB announced, they would be paying more than one billion eight hundred thousand Naira for the privilege of going on the Hajj. The actual sum payable by 7,000 pilgrims is N1,866,419,800 (one billion, eight hundred and sixty-six thousand, four hundred and nineteen thousand, and eight hundred Naira). This doesn’t include each pilgrim’s BTA, money that could be used to trade with banks, not the forbidden interest that Mallam Shekarau has put a stop to since he became Governor on account of the Shari’ah in Kano. What is baffling is not the total sum or the possible deals with banks. No. But rather the breakdown for items that could obviously be procured or services provided at much less if you go for them on your own, say as a private international pilgrim. The cocktail of items each Kano pilgrim is to pay for, making up the N14,155 referred to above amounting to the total of over N90 million we calculated earlier, if you have 7,000 paying pilgrims, not counting Government Sponsored Pilgrims (GSPs) that normally are a huge contingent too because of Kano state’s peculiarities is as follows: item-1, Passport, N850; item-2, suitcase, N4,500; item-3, uniform N2,000; item-4, admin charges (KSPWB), N2,000; item-5, admin charges (NAHCON), N1,000; item-6, Hajj Guide booklet/cassette, transport to and from camp/airport, N3,805. There is little a Kano pilgrim on his own can do about item-1 and item-5 as they are exclusively federal government affairs. And the State government expected to fight for these sums to be reduced by the federal agency concerned is itself fleecing the pilgrim through its own agents at KSPWB. However, on item-2 paying for suitcases, when we can have bags and other leather and related stuff made even for export in Kano I stand to be convinced as to why our pilgrims have to pay more than four thousand naira, for something we know is so cheap. N2,000 is enough for the big suitcase, and N500 for the small 10 kg hand luggage travellers bag; especially with the huge numbers required where economics of scale comes into play. Thousands are to be manufactured, as was the practice for pilgrimages past in Kano. N2,000 could have been saved for each pilgrim. On item-3, uniforms; each pilgrim normally gets five yards to go sew his uniform. Ten yards of fairly qualitative textile material for men during the run up to the latest Sallah festive season in Kano sold for not more than N2,000. The kind of mass production type given hujjaj surely shouldn’t cost a kobo more than N500. This saves N1,500 for the pilgrim. On item-5, admin charges, what reason does the KSPWB have to charge pilgrims for administering that which government fully supports it to do? Are they not paid salaries and allowances and more anymore? The whole N2,000 ought to be saved because government even pays from its coffers for non-paying state sponsored pilgrims, BTA inclusive, what more for those tax-payer pilgrims who scrape and save, many of them for many years to go even if just once on this critical annual Pillar of the Muslim Faith? Aren’t they more deserving of government reliefs? I think they are! I think and believe Governor Mallam Shekarau also must think they are, for the many gifts of food and even Saudi Riyals he along with local governments give every year to all Kano pilgrims in the holy land. What Hajj Guide or mere transport to and from the camp/airport could be so costly as to receive N3,805 from the poor Guest of Allah, the al-Hadji or al-Hadjiya, right from Kano? Is it not reasonable to expect that so long as KSPWB is not a private tour operator it should not work for profit or if it does it should go for the barest minimum on this, say N1, 500? Why the huge sum of N3, 805 just for a guide booklet or bus? Haba! If this gets done even now, each pilgrim will have savings made of N7, 805. He or she would thus only pay N6,350 for essentials, and know that he has been left alone not necessarily subsidized by KSPWB or the government it is seen to represent. The board still smiles all the way to the banks with N44,450,000 of the pilgrims’ monies rather than the unexplainable N99 million and some that it now makes from its 7,000 pilgrims. Could the balance otherwise be the KSPWB’s profit? Is it a profit making venture? How much of the profit makes it to the Kano government’s revenue receipt books? And who knows there may well be other areas in which the poor pilgrim gets done in by his handlers that a closer look by Mallam Shekarau might uncover. This brings us to the issue of who is serving who? Is the Pilgrims Board of Sani Lawan Kofar Mata in Kano serving the people it was set up to serve? Or is it rather fleecing them? And making fast bucks on their account? With the state Governor a man of God and mathematics professional I am sure his attention has not been drawn to these figures. I wouldn’t know whether Sani Lawan Kofar-Mata, a trained accountant has brought his accounting expertise to bear in gauging what exactly these costs imply to the pilgrims he always claims care for, and is so passionate about. Could it be a case of what the Hausa refer to as, “a chudi Guna da man-ta?” Or that the man on coming to the board and possibly meeting a tradition of the board “eating from the temple”, like the Jewish Rabbis, decided not to rock the boat keeping up the tradition?; with the good fortune that it may have given him a chance to promote his mentor, Mallam using these monies paid by pilgrims. I am a believer in Mallam Shekarau and his wonderful policies of human development. I know hundreds who have benefited. And am pleased. That is why I supported him for a second term. If there be a third term, I will support him. However I expect him to look into the KSPWB. To unveil the wonder of all the unexplainable Naira rain its Secretary, the good accountant is well known for among Kano politicians of the current dispensation. He gives even petty thugs hundreds of thousands of Naira. Because it is not his money. He pays for so many regular Sani Lawan Kofar Mata, Limamin Allah Maimaita sponsored radio and television programs. The unfortunate aspect is that he doesn’t care about flaunting the monies he makes from pilgrims. That is why when I studied and saw the figure and how our pilgrims are shortchanged I realized his sources of siphoning funds appear so secure to him he wouldn’t care a hoot what anybody says. There would be no means of uncovering his well covered tracks, but for our scrutiny of the public document he gave out on KSPWB’s activities. What a pity! I am certain the Mallam is not quite aware of all this. He would never allow his wards to be so taken for suckers and sucked dry by any of his lieutenants, never. Mallam would never do that, I know. For he is so conscious of the needs of the good people of Kano who have done for him a favour they had never done anybody, any politician before him. And the Mallam being so religious and serious about the welfare of his people I am definite he would never tolerate this if his attention gets drawn to it. I should send this to him in an open letter; with the hope he would order a proper review of the hajj board such that there should be no more “aklu bid-deen”, by anyone hiding under our good Mallam’s popularity. That is the least Mallam owes the good people of Kano. I am sure he would do the right thing. Especially now we know having handled Kano and being elected for a second term, Mallam can handle Nigeria as well or even much better than all others before him. This unwholesome habit of those at the Pilgrims Board he entrusts our hujjaj to needs to be (as I am sure it will be) studied and corrected this very year. Allah Ya taimaki Mallam; for he is truly mai taimako. Mallam T. M. Danbaba |