The National Hajj Commission of Nigeria, NAHCON, says the newly-introduced initiative of grouping pilgrims is yielding fruits so far.
The Commission said the nobel initiative, which would be put to test in this year’s Hajj operation is to ease movements and interaction amongst the pilgrims themselves and their state officials.
In an interactive with Freedom Radio Group, Kaduna Station on Thursday, the Head of Aviation department of the Commission, Engineer Goni Sanda said that if early reports reaching the Commission from the holy land, are anything to go by, then the grouping system is working beautifully well.
According to him, the system, which involves grouping forty-five pilgrims per group, has eased up the stress associated with sorting out, transportation and accommodation issues of the pilgrims that have so far arrived in the holy land so far in Saudi Arabia.
He said the reception team of the Commission in Madinah has reported that reception, transportation and accommodation of the pilgrims last night was swift and stress-free.
On the four, instead of eight days stay of the pilgrims in Madinah, Engineer Goni Sanda said the measure was necessitated by the need to ease financial burden on the pilgrims, saying it was part of the strategies adopted to beat down this year’s Hajj fares to what the pilgrims paid.
He called on the pilgrims to be prudent with their basic traveling allowance, BTA, in view of not only its reduction to five hundred dollars as against previous years of between six to up to one thousand five hundred dollars, but the new Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN credit card issuance policy, as against cash issuance.
Engineer Goni further advised the pilgrims to be law abiding, good ambassadors of their country and to appreciate Allah’s Favour to them for being amongst those to perform this year’s religious rites, warning that any misconduct would have commensurate consequences.
