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Tour operators under the umbrella of the Association for Hajj and Umrah Operators of Nigeria (AHUON) have asked the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) to clean itself of mistrust brewing among Nigerian Muslims and stakeholders in the hajj industry before passing judgement on who performs Hajj 2025 or will not perform.
The president of the association, Alhaji Abdullateef Ekundayo, gave the admonition while addressing a press conference on Monday in Abuja over a statement accredited to NAHCON that ‘With or without AHUON Arafat will hold.’
AHUON had recently asked its members to discontinue any preparation regarding the 2025 Hajj operations until NAHCON pays their monies trapped with the commission since the 2004 to 2024 Hajj operations.
Ekundayo claimed that the commission owes AHUON members over N15bn but kept mute at the expense of the operators’ businesses.
He added that it was the practice of the Saudi government after each Hajj operation to refund money to countries over services paid by pilgrims but not rendered, services paid for but poorly rendered to the agreed standard, and tent security deposits.
“Our members are owed all these categories of money from the 2004 Hajj to date by the commission. They confirmed in our meeting with them that they have received the sum of 20,000,000.SR (Twenty Million Saudi Riyals) of such refund from the Saudi authority since December last year, but they are yet to formally notify us to talk less of agreeing on the modalities of the refund payment,” he said.
Ekundayo stressed that NAHCON received over N2.7bn as caution deposit from the members which the Commission were to refund two weeks after the conclusion of the Hajj. “NAHCON has refused to refund any of the companies that applied for it, instead, they are asking for more money as an increase to last year’s deposit,” he alleged.
“We wish to call upon the Commission to address issues instead of passing judgement on who performs Hajj 2025 and who will not perform. As for AHUON, only Allah whose call we answer to the Holy land can decide who performs Hajj 2025,” Ekundayo said
He added that while their counterparts in Niger, Egypt, South Africa and other countries have received these monies through their regulators, NAHCON keep hold on to our monies.
“This is making us and other stakeholders in Nigeria’s hajj industry to be suspicious of and have no confidence in NAHCON. There is lack of credibility in NAHCON because the trust Nigerian Muslims have in the Commission has dropped totally, and we urged the new chairman to restore credibility to the commission,” he charged.
He further accused NAHCON of misleading the public about the Saudi 2025 Hajj calendar to portray AHUON as frustrating preparations for the upcoming Hajj.
“Nigeria has a total of 95,000 slots allocation, out of which tour operators have only 20,000. Why has the Commission been so perturbed about the preparation of the 20,000 as against the 75,000 of the State Pilgrim Boards? Clearly, the Commission is only after the money they want to collect from our members to use it to support their usual jamboree trips to Saudi Arabia.
“Talking about the Hajj calendar, we have four months to the start of issuance of the Hajj visa which will run for another two good months and end on April 18th. Therefore, the Commission has ample time to deal with the matter at hand if they really want,” Ekundayo added.
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