NAHCON Apologises to Pilgrims Over Deficient Airlift Operation

Olawale Ajimotokan

The National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) has tendered an apology to the federal government, State Pilgrims’ Welfare Boards, Private Tour Operators and the pilgrims that could not be airlifted to Saudi Arabia for this year’s hajj before the closure of Jeddah Airport on July 6 for any embarrassment the situation of the past few weeks might have caused.

The spokesman of NAHCON, Fatima Sanda Usara, issued the apology in a statement yesterday. She said the commission was incapacitated in discharging the responsibility of airlifting the pilgrims fully, as a result of last minute setbacks that frustrated its plan to conclude airlift of pilgrims by June 27.

She said the chartered flights option that gave so much hope to NAHCON and the Private Tour Operators’ leadership also became a failure as their IBAN accounts failed accreditation by the respective authorities in Saudi Arabia.

NAHCON said 1,809 pilgrims, who had fully paid to attend the exercise, could not travel because of the logistics constraint.

In all 1,809 pilgrims affected by the flight hiccups were left behind in Nigeria. They consisted of 700 from Kano, 97 from Plateau, 12 from Bauchi and 1,000 from Private Tour Operators.

NAHCON said that all affected pilgrims would be refunded their Hajj fares, adding it had learnt a lot of lessons and was determined not to have a repetition of the unfortunate situation in the future.