The Managing Director of AIB Travels and Tours Limited, Muhammad Sani Abubakar has commended the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria, NAHCON, for its early preparations for the 2023 Hajj, adding that the operation team led by the Chairman are doing the needful.
In a chat with KaabaNews, Abubakar said:
“NAHCON has indeed started preparations for 2023 HAJJ Operations quite on time. The modalities for payments, uploads, acknowledgements, the IT guys and the operation team are all on track, may Allah grant the commission success for it has done the needful so far.
Advising the commission, he stated that the chairman should beware of both internal and external forces that may not want him to succeed as they are well at work.
“My own sincere advice to the chairman of the commission is to keep to timing, as it has started preparations on time. He shouldn’t allow any internal or external force take the commission off track.”
Expressing happiness to the return to status quo on Hajj slots as it were before the Covid-19 pandemic, Abubakar said: “Verily the return of Hajj operations did not only come as a surprise, but as a wish always waited for, I was indeed very happy. ”
He added that now that the country has the opportunity to present 95,000 pilgrims, the commission, for optimum result, should focus on specific areas such as Good accommodation and feeding programmes for convenience of all pilgrims, as well as Departure and Arrival schedules must be well organized and adhered to, so as not to exceed the limits set by the Saudi Arabian authorities.
READ ALSO: 2023 Hajj: We’ll run HSS concurrently with pay-as-you-go — NAHCON Chair
Also, responding to question on late payment by intending pilgrims which has remained an enigma to the process and affects preparations, Abubakar said: “Indeed, this has great impact and affect the integrity of agents also. Travel dates are been shifted due to no funds to process the visa due to late payments by pilgrims. To this end, the commission should either share a certain percentage of what is available to all agents and allow them to source the remaining, at least in a worst case scenario.”
