Independent Hajj Reporters, a Hajj monitoring group, has appealed to the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) to extend deadline for payment of the 2018 hajj fares.
The National Coordinator of the group, Malam Ibrahim Muhammad made the appeal in a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Abuja.
NAN reports that NAHCON had fixed March 31, as the deadline for the closure of registration of the 2018 intending pilgrims.
Muhammad observed that less than 30 days to the deadline many states pilgrims’ boards are yet to register 40 per cent of the Hajj allocations given to Nigeria by the Saudi Authority.
The national coordinator said granting extension would give intending pilgrims enough time to pay for the hajj seats.
He expressed concern that failure to utilise 95, 000 hajj seats quota allocated to Nigeria by Saudi could lead to further reduction of Nigeria’s seats allocation by Saudi Arabia.
“Though, we understand that the deadline set by NAHCON was at the instance of Saudi Arabia 2018 hajj plan of concluding all hajj preparations before the commencement of Ramadan.
” Part of the Saudi 2018 hajj guideline mandated hajj missions to meet its financial obligations to hajj service providers for numbers of allocation given to them to enable the kingdom perfect plans for 2018 hajj.
“For the sake of the comfort of the Muslim, who want to fulfill their religious obligations, we urge Saudi authority and NAHCON to extend the timeframe provided for the payment of 2018 hajj fare
” This will allow our dear pilgrims to heed the call of Almighty Allah,” Muhammad said.
The coordinator said 80 to 85 per cent of Nigerian pilgrims are farmers, who cannot afford to harvest all the farm produce at once to pay for hajj seat.
This, according to him, is the reason why the 2018 hajj seat is experiencing slow patronage.
He stressed the need for hajj authorities to extend its ongoing sensitisation on hajj payment to grassroots by involving community leaders, Islamic related NGOs, market union leaders, youth associations for maximum awareness.
NAN reports that the Saudi Authority had allocated 95, 000 hajj slots to Nigeria for this year’s hajj. (NAN)