2 months ago
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The crisis rocking the National Hajj Commission has taken a new twist as travel agents under the Association of Hajj and Umrah Operators of Nigeria have threatened to pull out of the commission’s 2025 preparations for hajj operations.
NAHCON agents vowed to pull out of the 2025 hajj operations over seized N2.75bn belonging to agents but seized by the commission.
This was made known through a communiqué signed by the National President of the association, Abdullateef Ekundayo, and made available to Sunday PUNCH through the association’s spokesperson, Minsurat Akinbode-Ajayi.
NAHCON recently published an advert for agents to commence registration for the 2025 hajj operations.
This move was tackled by AHUON through a letter addressed to the chairman of NAHCON, decrying the refusal of the commission to refund the N25m deposited by each of the 110 agents who participated in the 2024 hajj operations. This amounted to a total sum of N2.75bn.
The letter, signed by the National President of AHUON appealed to the new NAHCON Chairman, Abdullahi Usman, to ensure proper closure of the 2024 operation books before the commencement of the 2025 preparations.
The travel agents also alleged the commission withheld N1bn belonging to 200 agents as their initial deposits during the 2023 hajj operations and could not account for the N1bn service charge taken from pilgrims.
These allegations and the mismanagement of President Bola Tinubu’s N90bn intervention funds, among others, caused the removal of the immediate past Chairman of the commission, Jalal Arabi, after anti-corruption agents quizzed him.
It was gathered that since the AHUON letter was sent to NAHCON, the commission had not refunded any of the agents.
This, according to the agents, caused the latest threat by members of the association to pull out of the 2025 hajj operations of the commission.
The association called for the refund of all monies owed to its members by the commission before the opening of a new bid for Hajj 2025.
It said agents are unanimous in calling for a stay of action on the bidding for the 2025 Hajj licence until NAHCON reconciles its accounts with the tour operators and pays all outstanding funds, including the 2023 and 2024 caution deposits and those of services not rendered over the years.
Corroborating the position of the national body during an emergency meeting of the northern zone, about 50 members of the association signed in support of the call to pull out from the attempt by the commission to go on with plans for the 2025 hajj.
The zone’s resolution obtained by our correspondent read in part, “We, the undersigned members of AHUON in the northern zone hereby collectively agreed, passed and adopted the following resolutions during our emergency general meeting: That all hajj and Umrah licensed companies from this zone shall not respond to the 2025 hajj advert issued by NAHCON until the following specific conditions are met.
“Full refund of all previous outstanding caution deposit funds deposited with the commission to our members. Also, a comprehensive resolution of all outstanding issues relating to IBAN accounts and other outstanding issues to our members.”
When contacted, the Vice President of the northern zone, Haruna Ismail, confirmed the development.
He explained that the emergency meeting of the zone and its resolutions were in support of the national body’s verdict on the matter.
“We have agreed on this at the national level, we only got the commitments of our northern members through this process and signature. This same thing will soon be replicated in the two other zones of the association, Abuja and Lagos.”
Efforts to get the spokesperson of NAHCON, Fatima Usara, to speak on the matter were unsuccessful as repeated calls put across to her phone were neither answered nor returned.
Also, text messages of enquiries sent to her phone were not responded to until when this report was filed.
