In its less than a year of operation, HajjPanorama.ng, foremost news platform solely dedicated to the coverage of Hajj and related matters, has not been found. Unbelievable! As at 8.33 pm of Wednesday 31st May 2023, it reported that no fewer than 10,068 of Nigerian pilgrims from different states have been successfully flown to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to perform Hajj by the National Hajj Commission (NAHCON).
With this, NAHCON has demonstrated commitment combined with inspiring zeal and energy. The organisation has not only found a most pleasant way around the regular route on which lies the troublous Sudan, it has also, with its trajectory of excellent performance, convinced the immediate past government of President Muhammadu Buhari that it deserves some tangential government support, especially for the aviation companies, so that the burden that the re-routing from the war-ridden Sudan would not impact too heavily on pilgrims.
The result of the smart suggestion by NAHCON, led by Barrister Zikrullah Hassan, has been a most enthusiastic disposition from the enlisted airlines, both the national and the foreign, including Saudi’s Flynas.
This writer has had his monitoring instinct for NAHCON activities turned on since June 2022. This happened from Makkah shortly after the Hajj rites for the year were over. NAHCON’s leadership, with an uncommon fervour for freedom of information and the complementing protocols of Open Government Partnership, had organised a meeting, right in Makkah, where it shared its reports on the Hajj 2022 exercise, from each of all its constituent operational departments before the full glare of stakeholders. The verdict on the preparations and the execution of the plan for — what has come to be known as the “Emergency Hajj” — was unanimous: excellent! It could not have been otherwise, given that it was the first outing of the sitting leadership captained by Hassan, credited with prized pedigree of combined experiential assets in Hajj management across all the three tiers of private, sub-national and national.
The endorsement from Nigerian stakeholders was later reinforced by the Hajj authorities of other African countries who, beyond a passing validation, voted Nigeria — and impliedly, Hassan — as their unanimous leader.
In the light of all these, NAHCON braced up early for greater accomplishments as envisioned from inception in line with the sanctity of amana (or trust in Islam). Incidentally, the wider environment of operations has not been quite favourable to the ambition of the Hassan-led team to actualise optimally friendly regime. Against the well schemed design to crash the cost of accommodation for pilgrims, this focused leadership engaged directly with the relevant authorities and owners. With them, the rate-spiking middlemen no longer have a space and therefore earning substantial gains for the pilgrims. But that was one joy with a slender body, to paraphrase Ola Rotimi. As with other monetary policies, the exchange rate regime turned out to skid on to a downward slope leaving the pilgrims and other dollar dependent transactions helpless. All gains earned from shrewd engagements by the NAHCON leadership got summarily frittered away. What would then would have happened if some gains had not been secured in the first instance?
For one whose age-old philosophy is transparency twinning with accountability while emphasising merit, nothing less than demonstrative expressions of abundant thanks to Allah in all possible ways should hold sway. The paramountcy of the health of the pilgrims, for instance, is non-negotiable. Beyond the clinical attention accorded the medical services in the previous years therefore, NAHCON, this year, published its recruitment agenda for medics and paramedics for the 2023 hajj. Since the recruitment exercise was concluded weeks back, it has been unprecedented plaudits all the way. Most commendably, there has not been any visible complaint from any quarter. Indeed, as we write, some members of the medical team are already in Saudi Arabia having gone ahead of the first set of pilgrims.
In spite of its inclination for transparency, the incumbent NAHCON leadership recognises the peculiarities of the operations of the different professionals it must work with. The NAHCON board, in addition to having a lawyer as chair, has other professionals including academics such as a Professor of Media Studies, Bala Muhammed of Bayero University, Kano. More interestingly, NAHCON’s job delineation provides for a resident commissioner dedicated to information and research. Most suitably therefore, the recruitment of the media team was duly anchored with a high level of dexterity profoundly premised on acute professionalism, trust as well as unimpeachable integrity cultivated over time across cognate beats. On top of all these is the potential of the individuals to render quality services. The summary of the profiles of the selected media team is that the representatives have the competence to deliver trendy skills across media genres and cyper-platforms.
Still with the media, the sitting NAHCON leadership broke yet another new ground. In addition to having advised the media team to familiarise themselves with its website, for the first time, NAHCON produced a customised guide for the enlisted media professionals. The 27-point manual applies lucidly to all categories of media workers on the Hajj assignment. A future edition will do better with the text or highlights of the NAHCON Act to enhance the familiarisation.
In the interest of all Al-Hujjajis and their supportive teams, NAHCON has further done well to ensure that catering arrangements for the entire duration of hajj exercise will emphasise the local dishes to which the young and the elderly Nigerians are used to back home in Nigeria. To give full strength to this vision, NAHCO facilitated a working visit of appointed Saudi caterers, even as it has since mandated those caterers to hire qualified Nigerians to work for them for the desired Nigerian aroma and taste. If pilgrims will therefore miss Nigeria during their stay in holy land, food should be out of the components of their nostalgia.
Even as the NAHCON innovations have just commenced playing out, impressed stakeholders have started volunteering commendations and prayers on NAHCON. Leading the pack among the states was the Executive Secretary of the Plateau State Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Board, Barrister Auwal Abdullahi. He expressed satisfaction with the Hajj operations this year, especially the airlifting of pilgrims from his state which has gone on quite smoothly. According to media reports, Abdullahi applauded “NAHCON for putting in place a sound structure and arrangements for a stress free operation this year”.
From Abdullahi’s counterpart in Kaduna State, Dr. Yakubu Arigassiyu, also came applause. He appreciated the fact that the NAHCON team did all they could to ensure that intending pilgrims paid lower or same amount applicable to the previous year’s Hajj. He unmistakably attributed the difference to current NAHCON leadership.
If the signals from Hassan and his lieutenants are worth reckoning with, the future looks. He once admitted that he realised that his is a hot seat, but that he’s used to such, as an Muslim Students’ Society-baked activist who has had to function with the most minimal of resources, including time. His lieutenants are supremely enthusiastic to contribute their respective quota for the overall success of the Hajj operations this year 2023 and the years to come.
Akanni, PhD, associate professor of journalism, is a member of the 2023 National Hajj Media Team. Follow him on Twitter via @AkintundeAkanni
