By:
USMAN A. AMBURSA
Travel Express Ltd, Abuja
HARUNA ISMA’IL
An-Noor Air Services and Tours Ltd, Kano
IKRIMAH MUHAMMAD
Positive Trends Travel and Tours Ltd, Kaduna
We are very encouraged by public reactions, rejoinders and the positive and otherwise feedbacks we have received following our first press release on this subject matter. And, as we promised, in this and the subsequent releases we shall provide more insights and answers to those questions that the National Hajj Commission, NAHCON may not wish the Nigerian public to know. What impresses us most was the advent of new crooked and rent-seeking Associations, defending the Commission probably to be gifted a Hajj seat that would be financed through the hard-earned monies of the same poor pilgrims they claim to be protecting. What a shame!
One challenge most media handles faced in reporting our first release was the difficulty or impossibility to separate the three signatories from AHOUN because of our active involvement in almost all what has been transpiring between the Association and NAHCON. Therefore, they captured the news as AHUON withdrawing from the Hajj exercise. However, in the release we appreciated AHOUN – but insisted that we chose to use our individual licensed companies’ name and our rights as Nigerians for this endeavor. Please the caveat should be noted, especially for those in the Commission that may use some weak elements among our rank to cause division.
MACHIAVELLIANISM AND NAHCON DECEPTION
In describing the difference between the immediate past NAHCON board and the current, we label the current board led by Prof. Saleh as being Machiavellian. Machiavellianism according to Sharpe and colleagues (2021) “is a personality construct characterised by cynicism, callousness, and skillful manipulation of others to achieve personal gains. The Machiavellian personality is often associated with cunning, lacking a moral code, and using clever but often unethical methods to deceive people to gain or maintain power (Brewer & Aloe, 2017). The current NAHCON board personified the above definition and we chronicled our recent engagement with them below for the record:
- You may recall that in November last year during the public hearing of the National Assembly on the 2024 Hajj exercise, NAHCON was directed by the committee to cede the privilege of searching and negotiating with service providers for the tour operators to AHUON, and they publicly agreed as a reconciliatory move to douse the feeling of misgiving between the two parties. We had another meeting with the Commission after the public hearing, where they reiterated their commitment of handing-off the selection of service provider for the tour operators to AHUON.
- It was with this confidence in mind that on 19th of January we presented a draft contract from our selected service provider called Ithra’a Al Joud – the same company that has been providing service to Nigerians for many years. Agreed, it was an unanticipated decision considering the many difficult years our Pilgrims have gone through, under the same service provider. But we would like to state the reasons for choosing Ithra’a Al Joud:
- Hajj is about service offering to the Pilgrims, and last year (2024), Ithra’a provided the best service to our economy class pilgrims (Tent D). Nobody can deny that fact! For the past 10 years or more, Nigerian Pilgrims at the Tent D have not witnessed superb service like what they enjoyed at the Masha’ir last year. That was Ithra’a’s achievement in conjunction with AHUON’s input and supervision.
- We are aware of the fact that the company has been reorganised. After the 2024, Hajj and they weeded out those nasty elements in and around the company that have been conniving with some NAHCON officials to engage in shady activities at the Tent A segment, at the Masha’ir. Those awful elements were well known in the Hajj circle and are the ones promoting the current service provider that NAHCON is imposing on Nigerian Pilgrims.
- We negotiated with Ithra’a and they refunded all the outstanding refunds of our members from the year 2022 to 2024. In total, they refunded about 1.3 million Saudi Riyals into the NAHCON account, on behalf of our members, being refunds for services either not rendered to the Pilgrims, or services delivered below standard. The Commission as we have always complained, had done nothing in the three-year struggle for the refund of the monies, despite the fact that some of our members have been persecuted or even jailed because of the refunds that resulted in court cases. The payment was made through NAHCON account on 21st of January, but NAHCON refused to pay the affected companies until 3rd April, after the reports of the public hearing on the 2024 Hajj, were released by the National Assembly. The reports indicted the Commission on the issue. That was the day NAHCON quickly released a list claiming that they have refunded the affected companies through the IBAN account of their lead companies. We are yet to verify the veracity of the Commission’s claim. Even if it was true, what happens to those companies that have not applied for a license this year or have decided to withdraw from participating and are not under any lead company?
- Another important reason why we accepted to move on with the Ithra’a Al Jood is their experience and knowledge of the Nigeria market for over 20 years and the commitment they exhibited in the 2024 Hajj by accepting and fulfilling all requests we put forward to them at the Masha’ir. This year a lot of innovations were introduced in the service offering to give Pilgrims the choices to decide the level of service and convenience they wanted to enjoy.
- Ithra’a Al Jood management were very transparent since last Hajj in the way and manner they provided item-by-item breakdown of the content of their contract. There were no hidden fees or obscure charges and false items in their contract offer. As we speak today, our colleagues are just paying money into NAHCON’s bank account without full information of the details of the contracts signed on our behalf by the Commission.
- Our direct negotiation has cut down any third-party interference and gave us the opportunity to receive an excellent offer. For example, the first price released to our members by NAHCON from Mashariq Al Mutamayizah Company was 4,050 Saudi Riyals, but Ithra’a offered a better price of 3,806 Saudi Riyals on their economy plus package. Note that, the price was on economy plus (Tent D+), not the lower economy package (Tent D).
- Ithra’a Al Joud has honored all their component part of the bargain as enumerated above. It is most honorable that we give them another chance, which we have no regret offering.
- On 20th of January, after several delays and requests for amendments to the Ithra’a proposed contract, by NAHCON the Chairman/CEO of the Commission signed it, on behalf of the tour operators in a small ceremony at the Commission’s office in Makkah. It was a celebration of hope because of the many advantages the contract carries. Firstly, it was cheaper than the one signed by NAHCON with Mashariq Al Mutamayizah company by almost 250 Saudi Riyals. Secondly, it spelt out details of the offering for everyone to see. Thirdly and importantly, the offer from Ithra’a Al Joud came in four categories: the basic economy package (Tent D), the economy plus (Tent D+), the VIP package (Tent A) and the VIP plus (Tent A+), to provide the pilgrim the right to choose from among the different offerings.
- To our surprise two days after the signing of the contract, the Chairman of the Commission invited us to his office in Makkah for a meeting and instructed us to withdraw the Tent A portion from the Ithra’a contract. That was the same contract he signed and delivered two days earlier! His reason was that he has already signed another contract with Rawaf Mina, exclusively to provide Tent A service to Nigerians. It was a well-known fact that the organization, marketing and provision of tent A services to high-net-worth Pilgrims in Nigeria is the sole responsibility of the tour operators. What brought NAHCON into this business, we are yet to comprehend.
- According to the Chairman, NAHCON has already written letters to all State Governors, National Assembly members, Senior Civil servant and some top businessmen (and businesswomen) that it has Tent A for sale and Rawaf Mina has been allocated those slots. It took us over three hours trying to explain to the Chairman and his team at the meeting that NAHCON, as a regulator, has no business marketing Hajj services to individuals and institutions. Besides, VIP visas traditionally are only being processed and issued on the tour operators’ e-track (Nusuk) platform. We further asked, assuming the Governors and others indicated interest and paid for the service through NAHCON, whom among the 118 licensed companies would they choose to provide the high-end service for them? None of the NAHCON team could answer that question convincingly. This shows the level of decay in the Commission in terms of rent-seeking and subjectivity.
- When the Chairman insisted that we have to give up the tent A to them, we requested them to allow us to meet with the Rawaf management and renegotiate the offer, because it was higher than that of Ithra’a and we do not have the breakdown of what it contains. The NAHCON Chairman vehemently declined the request and said the contract had been concluded. From there we “sensed a rat” and trouble brewing. We called off the meeting with a promise to reach out to our colleagues for their input and revert.
- We refused to accept the Chairman’s position based on the above reasons and the legal implication of the NAHCON proposal, because Ithra’a may decide to drag NAHCON to a court of arbitration for contractual abuse. That refusal to allow NAHCON the free hand to sell the VIP package was the beginning of our trouble. The chairman reminded us that one day we will also come looking for a favor from him, just before we depart from the meeting.
- The following day after the meeting and probably after consulting with his linchpin within the NAHCON management, the Chairman called to tell us that, since we refused to heed to their demand, he will not sign the procurement offer letter to Ithra’a Al Joud to enable it complete the contract process and activate its presence on the Ministry of Hajj (Nusuk) platform. We were made to understand that, in compliance with the Nigerian procurement laws, after signing the main contract that was submitted by Ithra’a, NAHCON will prepare a procurement offer to the company, which they will accept in return. This was the offer letter the Chairman threaten not to authorise.
- A week later we met with the chairman and his team in their Abuja office with the request to conclude the procurement offer. After a long ‘dragging’ on the issue, he directed us to go and write on appeal letter on the issue and said the appeal letter has to go through the Commission’s management meeting for approval or otherwise. We complied to the instruction and wrote the appeal letter on the 29th of January. In the same vein, we requested NAHCON to formally release the Ithra’a Al Joud package to our member to start subscribing, looking at the time factor. We understand that the management meeting unanimously agreed that the Chairman should let go and approve the offer, but to our disappointment, we waited for another one week without a formal response from the Commission.
- We reconvened at NAHCON on the same mission on 6th of February, and after a meeting with the Commissioner in charge of operations, he led us to the Chairman’s office to further appeal to him to approve the offer. To our disbelieve, despite the purported management approval, the Chairman was adamant that he won’t sign the offer. In fact, in that meeting he called the names of three of us, the signatories to this release and said, “I am not with you” in the presence of everyone. To make things worse he refused to shake hands with us. We were embarrassed! After a lot of begging, he later gave-in and agreed to sign the offer, but on the condition that, we had to travel with his team that was going back to Saudi Arabia. Unknown to us they had already perfected their plan to swindle us.
- We commissioned two of our comrades to join the Chairman in Saudi again on the 8th of February. As if the Chairman had not done his worst yet, it took another three days of pleas not only by our representatives, but by the Ithra’a management as well, before the offer letter was authorized on 11th of February. However, before authorizing the offer, NAHCON had gone ahead to sign another contract for economy package (Tent D) with Rawfaf Mina and released their package offer to our members who were kept in confusion and dilemma for three good weeks, waiting for the offer of Ithra’a to be released. In achieving this inglorious feat, NAHCON colluded with their cronies and partners in deception among the tour operators who do not shares the same philosophy and objectives with us.
- To achieve their grand master plan, Rawaf Mina offered a lower price (3,700 Saudi Riyals) than what Ithra’a Al Joud had offered (3,806 Saudi Riyals). It was after this, that NAHCON released the Ithra’a packages to our members, three weeks after our contract with Ithra’a Al Joud was signed. When we discovered the desperation of NAHCON to maintain the status quo we approach Ithra’a Al Joud on the price variation and they wrote to the Commission reducing their offer to 3,490 Saudi Riyals, all-inclusive on the economy plus (Tent D+), that’s the difference of about 90,000 Naira at the current exchange rate. Up until today, NAHCON has not formally released this package offer to anybody. We want to ask, how is NAHCON protecting the Pilgrims interest?
- What NAHCON did when they realised we have started sensitising members to subscribe to the Ithra’a package was to quickly mobilise their official resources, bullying everyone and telling lies about Ithra’a and the repercussion against subscribing to the Ithra’a package. At the end of it, nine out of the ten lead companies followed NAHCON’s anointed service provider – Rawaf Mina. One lead company insisted on signing with Ithra’a Al Joud. That particular lead company that stood with the Association and all the twelve other associate companies under it were denied access for camp booking. They were denied the privilege of having an independent IBAN account to transact their visa processing. That is how power could be abused to protect vested interests. Those companies were now put under the state Pilgrims quota and their visas would be issued by NAHCON itself; to make sure the choice of tour operators did not operate this year and the dream of being in control of the affairs and needs of their Pilgrims is never achieved.
- The three companies and signatories to this release were denied the choice of a lead company because of our insistence that the only lead company that selected Ithra’a Al Joud must be allowed to operate as the tenth approved lead company by NAHCON.
OUR OBJECTIVES
We did not intend to blow our trumpet in any way because we are confident posterity will judge our actions and that of those sponsored to foment trouble in order to discredit our efforts, or derail us from achieving what we set as a target. Our target is A CLEAN HAJJ! A clean Hajj is Hajj that is Pilgrims focused, devoid of any ulterior motive to deprive or take advantage of the Pilgrims to defraud them. This is our objective over the years which set us on the opposing path with the Commission and some hanky-panky tour operators that have been towing the same path with them. We will not relent on this course and no amount of bullying or character attack will deter us from asking the right questions or providing the proper answers to achieve the said objectives.
Talking about proper answers, in our next release we will provide and analyse the figures that make the difference in determining the right price for the Hajj and how NAHCON swindles the poor Nigerian Pilgrim to finance the jamboree of its officials and other interest groups: a clear case of robbing Peter to pay Paul!
Thank you,
USMAN A. AMBURSA HARUNA ISMA’IL
Travel Express Ltd, Abuja An-Noor Air Services and Tours Ltd, Kano
08033138590 08060000190
IKRIMAH MUHAMMAD
Positive Trends Travel and Tours Ltd, Kaduna
08039650646
