2011: NAHCON AND EMERGING CHALLENGES IN HAJJ OPERATIONS
As the Muslim population continues to rise yearly across the globe, so is the number of pilgrims to the Holy Land of Makkah on the increase. This has led to yearly challenges not only to the host country – the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – but to all countries with large population of pilgrims. The greatest challenge of all to the host is the overstretching of facilities in the holy sites. Summarily, the Saudi authorities have been overwhelmed by this development because the holy sites which have the capacity of containing about 900,000 pilgrims now contains over three million every year.
In its efforts to contain the challenges, the Saudi government has continued to work out modalities and implement long term policies that all aim at a hitch-free hajj exercise every year. They have succeeded to a large extent in containing the challenges connected to the King Abdul-Azeez International Airport in Jeddah (the main entry and exit point for pilgrims), intercity transportation (Jeddah-Makkah-Madinah), Tawaf around the Ka’abah, Sa’y between the Safat and Marwa, Jamarat, Mina tenting, locations at the plains of Arafat, transportation within the holy sites and feeding programme for pilgrims while in Mina and Arafat. They are yet battling to surmount pilgrims’ accommodation just around the Haram.
During the last hajj for Nigeria, three major components of hajj operations stood out very stark. One was the semi-permanent accommodation arrangement for Nigerian pilgrims in Madinah. The second was the feeding programme at Mashair which was introduced by the Saudi government for all countries of the world. The third was definitely the new Saudi airlift policy which mandated each of the countries with large pilgrim population such as Nigeria to spread its Saudi-bound and return leg to span one month each due to the overstretching of facilities at the Jeddah Airport.
Over the years, accommodation arrangement for Nigerian pilgrims in Madinah was often characterized by controversies and inadequacy. The Nigerian pilgrims were always left to the mercies of the accommodation providers who give the same services to pilgrims from all other countries of the world. The peak of this happened in 2010 Hajj when Nigerian pilgrims were diverted to Makkah on arrival to Jeddah, far before the closure of Madinah road to pilgrims.
The chaotic situation raised serious concern of hajj stakeholders, especially those in the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON). At a post mortem conference on Hajj 2010 held in Kaduna on February 8, 2011, all the components of the hajj exercise were reviewed and stakeholders brainstormed on the way forward. Problems associated with Nigerian pilgrims’ accommodation in Madinah featured prominently when the Commissioner of Planning, Research, Statistics, Information and Library Services, (PRSILS) made a dramatic display of the ugly situation that led to pilgrims’ diversion to Makkah instead of Madinah. The conference endorsed the Commission’s proposal that a semi-permanent accommodation arrangement be given a trial in the following hajj operation.
After the conference, a committee was constituted to study how to implement the plan. After a lot of work done by the committee, five accommodation providers were contracted to house Nigerian pilgrims for the 2011 Hajj. They were asked to provide 35,000 bed spaces, implying that 35,000 Nigerian pilgrims could be accommodated at any given time without cause for alarm during the hajj period.
Altogether, about 68 houses were occupied by Nigerian pilgrims during the 2011 Hajj, mostly in the pre-Arafat session when over 80 percent of the pilgrims (73,043 of 89,000 Nigeria’s allocation for Hajj 2011) were comfortably received in Madinah for the first time. Less than 16,000 pilgrims visited Madinah after Arafat. Most of the houses on the semi-permanent contract were occupied three times. The experiment was really rewarding.
To ensure that this policy was successfully implemented, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of NAHCON, Mallam M. M. Bello, on Friday October 7, 2011 went round the accommodations and also visited the Hijra Station to see for himself all the processes undertaken for Nigerian pilgrims to go into their accommodations without hitches.
Also, on Friday October 14, 2011, the Nigerian Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Alhaji Abdullahi Garba Aminchi with the Consul-General, Alhaji Aminu Nabegu along with some members of the Nigerian Diplomatic Corps and Nigerian journalists inspected the accommodations in Madinah and visited the Hijra Station to get acquainted with the processes. The Ambassador commended the efforts of NAHCON in general and the Hijra officials in particular for their services to the pilgrims and prayed that Allah continued to assist them in their good work.
At the station itself, the Nigerian pilgrims were accorded the best reception. On October 3, 2011 (5th Dhul-Qida, 1432H), the Hijra operations kicked off with the arrival of 45 pilgrims of the Nasarawa State contingent at the station at 07.36 am. They were followed by Lagos and Kwara pilgrims.
However, the fruits yielded by the new policy were equally challenged by the tedious responsibilities of daily inspections of the accommodations and problems linked with some pilgrims’ lack of orientation on how to use facilities provided in the houses. There were quite few cases when pilgrims stayed little above one hour at the Hijra station due to the inability of the General Car Syndicate to provide buses for the pilgrims who were due to depart to Makkah and thus give way to the incoming pilgrims. This often caused ripples between the Hijra officials and the Saudi authorities.
There were few times when the network system delayed pilgrims’ processes. There also occurred cases when the mixture of Nigerian pilgrims with pilgrims of other nationals in one bus caused delay at the station due the inability of other nationals to process their accommodations in good time. Despite all that, the average time spent by the majority of the pilgrims at the station ranged between 10 to 30 minutes.
On November 12, 2011, the Amirul-Hajj and Leader of the Federal Government Delegation to the 2011 Hajj, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’adu Abubakar, mni, CFR, alongside NAHCON Chairman, undertook an inspection tour of the Nigerian accommodations in Madinah. At the end, the Sultan expressed happiness with the new arrangement and commended NAHCON for its continuous foresight and innovations in ensuring that Nigerian pilgrims do not only attain hajj mabrur, but enjoy maximum comfort. It is good news that this new arrangement was a great success.
As for the feeding arrangement which was more successful than the 2010 Hajj, the major challenges encountered were inadequacy of caterers which was because of the fact that states had suggested caterers who did not have the prerequisite qualifications laid down by the Saudi Government. Out of the 27 caterers that applied, only seven were prequalified by the relevant Saudi authorities in accordance with the Saudi regulations guiding the feeding programme.
There was also the problem of inadequate number of kitchens in the holy sites. The difficulties in transporting the food from Makkah city into the Mashair at times were recorded. Added to these, some of the prequalified carters acted contrary to the signed agreements.
2011 Hajj was the second year the feeding arrangement was undertaken on a full scale base. In the past few years, some states had attempted it on skeletal base until 2010 when the Saudi Government made is compulsory on every country – not states – to feed their pilgrims during their stay in Mina and Arafat.
The Saudi-bound airlift operations commenced on October 2, 2011 and ended on October 31, 2011 while the home-bound trips began on November 11, 2011 and ended on December 8, 2011. The whole operations which started with Nasarawa state pilgrims from Abuja ended with Kano state pilgrims who were brought back to their fatherland via Aminu Kano International Airport on board Max Air. Both legs were concluded on schedule. Pilgrims’ airlift has already been stabilized over the past five years.
On a concluding note, the 2011 Hajj was a success. The overall improvement in hajj operations in Nigeria is commendable. It is a good development that calls for sustained spiritual and material support from all Muslims of Nigeria who are definitely potential pilgrims at all times.
All the hajj stakeholders in Nigeria deserve kudos including NAHCON, the National Amirul-Hajj and his team, the Airlines Operators, the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, the State Hajj Boards/Commissions, the relevant Federal Ministries: Health, Interior (Immigration), Finance, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Aviation, as well as the geopolitical and religious representatives and bodies. The cooperation from the Saudi authorities was tremendously remarkable.
Muhammad Ajah is a writer, author, advocate of humanity and good governance based in Abuja. E-mail [email protected].