The executive secretary of the Nigeria Christian Pilgrim Commission (NCPC), Rev. Yakubu Pam, has said the Commission would do everything possible to discourage and put an end to abscondment of pilgrims during pilgrimage.
He stated this in Umuahia, Abia state, recently during a strategic stakeholders’ meeting with the state chairmen and secretaries of the Pilgrims Welfare Boards in the South-east.
A press statement released in Abuja Friday by the Commission’s head of media, Celestine Toruka, indicated that Rev. Pam said “we are ready to deal with the abscondment of pilgrims during pilgrimage.”
“One of the strategies to discourage the menace of abscondment would be to put in place tougher measures for the guarantors to endorse so that when a pilgrim absconds the guarantor would be made to bear the brunt and if possible risks being arrested by security operatives,” he said.
He lamented that the South-east had the highest number of abscondment during pilgrimage and urged the region’s governors to embrace pilgrimage by increasing their sponsorship of intending pilgrims to Israel.
Rev. Pam disclosed that the stakeholders’ meeting was to harmonise the existing relationship between the Commission and the state Christian pilgrims’ welfare boards.
Earlier, in his welcome address, the chairman of the Anambra state Christian Pilgrims’ Welfare Board, Prof. Steve Ibenta, congratulated the NCPC boss on behalf of other state chairmen and secretaries of Christian pilgrims’ welfare boards in the zone on his appointment by President Muhammadu Buhari.
“We in unity congratulate you on your well-deserved appointment; it is God’s decision,” he said, and prayed that God would provide him “all the graces he needs to function effectively.”
