The House of Representatives has set up a nine-man committee to investigate the National Hajj Commission or NAHCON on how it spent the N90bn donated to it by the federal government and sundry financial receipts for the 2024 Hajj operation in Saudi Arabia.
The House condemned the performance of NAHCON and FCTA Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Board in the 2024 Hajj exercise describing their roles as abysmal.
Also to be investigated apart from NAHCON and the FCTA Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Board are their agents, and sub-agents in the 2024 Hajj exercise.
The resolutions emanated from the adoption of a ‘Motion of Urgent Public Importance moved by Hon Mohammed Omar Bio on the Urgent Need to Investigate the National Hajj Commission and FCTA Muslims Pilgrims Welfare Board, Their Agents, and Sun Agents Over The Shoody Arrangement And Treatment of Nigerian Pilgrims’ in the 2024 Hajj Exercise.
Omar Bio noted that the Hajj exercise is important in the life of every Muslim and is, in fact, one of the five pillars of Islam.
He said, “NAHCON was set up to provide efficient and effective services to the pilgrims through implementation of NAHCON Act;
“Seamless coordination in the states of the federation, each state has a Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Board and that of FCT is the FCTA Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Board.
“About 50, 865 Muslim Pilgrims across the states in Nigeria were under the care of NAHCON, and some of them were not taken care of in terms of welfare, organisation, guidance and monitoring as expected.”
The Lawmaker stressed that despite the “huge amount paid by the Pilgrims for the 2024 Hajj exercise, NAHCON’s 2024 Budget Allocation, intervention from the Federal Government to the tune of 90 Billion Naira, and support from the Government of Saudi Arabia, NAHCON and FCTA Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Board’s below performance in the 2024 Hajj Exercise especially in Makkah and Mina is unexpected.”
He said it’s disturbing that “if this poor performance of NAHCON is not investigated with a view to improve future performance,” further “Hajj exercise for Nigerian citizens may be more complicated and put the entire country in a bad light in the committee of nations.”
The house consequently set up the committee with a mandate to investigate and report back during a legislative day.