NAHCON 101 for beginners By Zahra’u Bintu Omar

One sat musing, if the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) were a course of study in a Nigerian institution, for which one was requested to develop a study textbook for a fresher class, what will be an appropriate title for the textbook? A few titles came to mind: Understanding NAHCON for Beginners, Introduction to NAHCON, and NAHCON 101 for Dummies. This writer decided against the latter option because there are so many books styled similarly and one is not the type that would want to be seen as stealing another person’s creativity, hence, the decision to settle for the more academic title, NAHCON 101 for Beginners. Here are snippets from chapter one of the proposed textbook.
This first chapter of the book would discuss what necessitated emergence of the commission and thus, NAHCON Establishment Act. In a nutshell, NAHCON is a supervisory body entrusted by the constitution to regulate, monitor and organize Hajj and Umrah trips for Nigerian Muslim pilgrims. It is an agency under the presidency because in the past, when Hajj affairs were under a ministerial department, Nigerian pilgrims received the worst handlings. It was a period when the country’s pilgrims absconded in their hundreds in Makkah and were treated by the supervisory departments like any other file in a typical government ministry: shelved and abandoned to dust until a rescuer surfaces. Many a times, the Saudi Kingdom had to intervene to transport Nigerian pilgrims back to the country after becoming tired of their rampaging in the airports. That was the dark age of Hajj in Nigeria, when it appeared there was no superintendent from the supervising ministry willing to wield the big stick.
Now things have changed. Federal government saw the wisdom in creating NAHCON and placing it directly under the presidency: movement of thousands of people outside the country is pivotal to the security and image of the nation not to mention the need for NAHCON’s institutional autonomy in order to function well. This sanitized the system as well as the obvious leaps and bounds that Hajj reforms attained in Nigeria such that it is ranked among the top ten in the world. Now, who would wish to resurrect such a past that has been successfully consigned to memory? Who has such short memory to start advocating for a regress to status quo ante; that NAHCON should be backslidden to a department under any ministry at all?
A subsection of chapter one will highlight functions of the commission, one of which is this: “The Commission shall liaise and coordinate with the appropriate authorities or organs of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on the rules and regulations governing entry into and staying in Saudi Arabia for purposes of Hajj and Umrah……..”
One of such rules and regulations of entry into Saudi Arabia is for the visa applicant to indicate the service provider in charge of his/her feeding, accommodation and transportation. Failure to do so leads to failure in securing entry visa into the Kingdom. By inference, the central feeding system, as fine-tuned by NAHCON, cannot be scraped to allow pilgrims feed themselves as advocated in some quarters, because it is a precondition for securing entry into Saudi Arabia for the purpose of performing Hajj. One’s name will not be uploaded on the Saudi portal until details of a valid Saudi caterer is provided.
We can even decide to pretend that feeding arrangement is not a prerequisite for obtaining visa to travel for Hajj, it will be patently counterintuitive to abolish a scheme which has led to a marked drop in the prevalence of Nigerian pilgrim being reduced to food beggars, itself a giant blight on our collective national pride.
The role of the commission in accommodation negotiations has also been questioned though the NAHCON ACT is clear on this. However, it is misguided to assert that the National Hajj Commission currently negotiates Hotel accommodations. The Commission’s role in negotiations is purely a supervisory one. This role was forced upon the Commission after it was discovered that, when left unsupervised, some State Pilgrims’ Welfare Boards (SPWBs) often collude with hoteliers to inflate hotel accommodation contracts. Thus the commission now acts as an overseer of all accommodation negotiations between SPWBs and hoteliers. Furthermore, the commission sends a pre Hajj investigative team along with SPWBs representatives to ensure that all accommodations selected by SPWBs are up to standard; it has been noted that some SPWBs often compromise on quality and distance of residence to cut costs. The commission also uses that opportunity to ascertain what the fair market prices for those accommodations are, in line with its supervisory role.
And the NAHCON Act empowers the commission to take decisions in the best interest of Nigerian pilgrims! What can be more flattering concerning this arrangement than that Malaysia and Indonesian Hajj missions have been mandated by their governments to adopt the Nigerian approach to Madinah accommodation! A credit indeed!
And how can anyone ask airlines to charge the same amount for Hajj and Umrah tickets? Even prices of local transportation are hiked during festive seasons. Besides, during Umrah period, airlines travel to and fro with passengers onboard; this is not the case during Hajj operations. Aircraft return to the country empty to convey next batch of travellers into the holy land. Similarly, during the return trips, they arrive the Kingdom empty after transporting passengers back to their countries. How does an organization make up for those empty seats but to agree on a formula that leaves both parties with no pain, no gain?
And who does not know that all tent security and similar deposits not utilized are refunded to pilgrims annually? Once the Saudi Ministry of Hajj releases the funds, NAHCON proceeds to distribute the returns to pilgrims and even publishes them in national dailies for public awareness. In March 2016, NAHCON refunded the sum of 1.75 Billion Naira to pilgrims through boards of the 36 states of the country and the FCT. It refunded the sum of 526 Million Naira in 2017. These refunds are inclusive of services not rendered or poorly rendered during the 2015 and 2016. 
Enough of Chapter One! At the end of the year, a student either comprehends the textbook as basics of NAHCON or carries it over because these are simple rudiments.
Ms. Omar writes from House N3, Bulunkutu Maiduguri, Borno state
 

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