National Hajj Commission of Nigeria, NAHCON has announced the sum of N1.5 million as tentative fare for the 2019 Hajj exercise.
The commission urged states to commence immediate online registration of intending pilgrims for holy pilgrimage.
The NAHCON, according to a statement issued by its Head of Public Affairs Division, Hajia Fatima Sanda Usara, said all payments should be concluded by February next year.
Usara stated that the decision was taken during a post Hajj joint meeting between the leadership of NAHCON and chief executives of State Muslim Pilgrims’ Welfare Boards/Agencies, SPWBs held over the weekend in Abuja where salient challenges from 2018 Hajj were reviewed with a view to finding solutions to them.
She disclosed that late registration of pilgrims was identified as a major setback in the success of Hajj operations and therefore resolved that all SPWBs should commence online registration of intending pilgrims.
“The meeting agreed to tentatively peg the Hajj fare at 1.5 million Naira (one million, five hundred thousand Naira) pending final calculations. If the fare is deposited by installments, it was agreed that all payment should be concluded by February 2019.
“Meanwhile, intending pilgrims are to note that Hajj registration is to be done online, cost of which is five-hundred Naira only (500 Naira only), and these charges are already included in the total Hajj fare. No extra amount is to be charged for purchase of Hajj form because Hajj form is obsolete.
“It was also resolved that as part of measures to safeguard timely planning, state welfare boards should propose a tentative date for airlift of their pilgrims and submit such resolutions to NAHCON within 30 days from date of this meeting”, she stressed.
The statement quoted the NAHCON chairman, Barrister Abdullahi Mukhtar Muhammad to have affirmed that consistent planning and constant reviews remain the mechanisms needed for successful Hajj outing.
“Consequently, failure in training and retraining of staff, research, consultations, persistent monitoring and evaluation, strict compliance and evaluation are recipes for total Hajj operational failure which all stakeholders must work against.
“Therefore all stakeholders were urged to start planning as if Arafat would be taking place soonest”, Muhammad stated.
Some state chief executives who spoke on accommodation challenges commended the comfort enjoyed by pilgrims in Madinah and appealed to NAHCON to sustain the feat.
The meeting promised to improve on the standard of accommodation in Madinah while a committee comprising two representatives from each geo-political zone was set-up to review possibility of securing large buildings as unified accommodation for Nigerian pilgrims in Makkah.
On catering services, the statement said the stakeholders suggested that each state should negotiate feeding of pilgrims directly with the caterers and bypass any intermediary in the name of agents.
It added that they were also counseled to look at the possibility of exporting/supplying the caterers with Nigerian variety of foodstuff under strict Saudi Arabian guidelines and permit to be used in preparing the pilgrims’ meals so as to further generate revenue for the states.
The statement noted that no report of missing pilgrims’ luggage or Zamzam water was recorded in the period under review.
It, however, added that all state boards have agreed to join hands with NAHCON and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to end cases of pilgrims absconding during Hajj and Umrah, which nevertheless it noted has been on the decline in recent years.
NAHCON, according to the statement has also vowed to ensure that all Umrah and Hajj applicants are returned within the stipulated time in their visas.
