•On His Job As National Hajj Commission Boss
National Hajj Commission boss,Anofiu
Elegushi is one of the people you’d mention when the discourse is about HAJJ
Operations in Nigeria. This is because of his
strategic post as the Federal Commissioner for Operations and Licensing at the
commission. How critical is his job for the successful handling of Hajj
operations in Nigeria year in, year out,what has been his experience so
far,what drives his passion ? These are some of the questions City People put
to him recently when we met. Read on !
What are the specific innovations that
you deployed over the years to making the operation successful because Hajj
operations in Nigeria had always been fraught with issues year in, year out.
Let me start from the States. Like, in 2012, I
went for Hajj. When we got to Medinah, we struggled to get a bed for
ourselves.In Mecca, it was hell. So, I mean, we even slept outside in the
passage. Since that time, I had it in my
head that I would change things .So, when I now got to the work, I made sure
that the house that people would stay, I will get the floor plan of that house,
first floor, second floor, you know, the number of bedding,we will do the
statistics.
So, in Lagos, you will know your bed,
you will know your floor,you will also know your room mate.That’s one of the
innovations. So, from there, you will paste on the door, the names of persons
that will be in this room.
When you enter the room, you will see
your name on the bed. For you to know the bed, you are sleeping. So, you won’t
drag the room, you won’t drag the bed. That was what I did. And it was a
success. And I made sure that I go with enough Ulamas and Hajj guides.
So, those are the things that I
believe helped us. Apart from other things that we just improved upon. Coming to where we are today if you look at
the operation from 2024,we will never have any left over.
We have done over 30 flights just from
Sunday till now.
Do you have the figures of Pilgrims
traveling this year?
We are doing almost 45,000. That is
all over the country.
But Tour operators, they are doing
about 9,000 or something. But most of them do steady flights. So, we don’t have
much control on that.
Again, they are saying that those who will be
going in 2027, they have been mandated to pay before November this year,why the
change in Policy...why the rush?
A.If you have enough time to plan, you
will get it done in a beautiful way. So if you don’t plan, you are planning for
failure. So we want to have enough time to plan,we want to start working like a
country like Indonesia, whereby for 2027 Hajj, they already have their list. So
that is the reason why they are not using projections anymore. In Nigeria, we
always start by using projections.
Sometimes we project for 50,000 and at the end of the
day, over 60k will turn up. So we have to get to a standard that we know we are getting ready for 2027 by
now that will allow us to have our
preparations instead of using projections to fix up our services. We
must stop using projections because sometimes it doesn’t serve us right at all.
The reason why we want to close in time so
that Saudis will know the number of
people they want to care for from Nigeria .You can’t just say, I just came on
today and I discovered that you are 100,000 and my plan is not more than
60,000... it’s going to create issues. But they want to know in time that this
is the number of people that will be coming from a particular country And the
only way to know is by planning ahead.
What determines the number they give
to each country, is it the country that determines or Saudi Arabia?
Saudi Arabia always determines.And I
think they determines it by the percentage of Muslims in some of these
countries. Like in 2023, we exhausted our 95,000 because what normally happens
is that if they give 95,000 ,we give 20,000 to Tour operators and state, we
give 75,000 to state-owned operators. So in 2023, we exhausted all the 95,000.
In 2024, they gave us 95,000 but we did about just 60,000. In 2025, we did
around 60,000 or something. But this year, they first gave us what we utilized
in 2025 ...it was around 60-something thousand but they later slashed it to
50,000. So out of the 50,000, we gave 9,000 plus to the Tour Operators and the
state utilized about 40,000. So it is the standard practice every year.
How much would an intending pilgrim
keep now to perform the holy pilgrimage?
I may not be able to give u a
definitive figure . Everything is determined by the exchange rate. we seem
to have a stable dollar rate right now .And the beautiful thing about it, maybe
it will even come down before the end of the operations this year.
We hear it’s up to about 9 million
naira per pilgrim this year.
No, what we did this year is not up to
10 million.It’s not even up to 8
million... it is 7m plus from the southwest. From the north, it will reduce,
from the far north, by east, it will reduce simply because of the travel time by the airline. This year, we did $2,000 for
Southwest, $1,800 for north. And $1,820
something for the far north. Because from there , flight is
approximately 6 hours or 5 hours plus.
From north, it’s approximately less
than 5 hours plus. From the far north, maybe 4 plus. So the more the travel
time, the more the fuel consumption, so the more you will pay.
In the event of any casualty, who is
the first point of call? Is it the family?
Because we have our medical team, led
by the head of medical mission. They report to us and when they report
casualties, we contact the state where the deceased comes from because the
state knows them. They know their family and everything about them. So they
will now be the one that will contact the family of the deceased. That’s the
rule.They will eventually give the go
ahead to bury the deceased over there. So what we will do is to get the burial
certificate and hand it over to the family when we return from Hajj.
What has been your biggest challenge
so far
Jajj operations is not what you can
predict like that...you may think you’ve solved one big problem only to meet
another one that will be bigger than that.
Challenges will come, some from the
airline, some from the passengers ,you know Human beings are not easy to
control.Mind you,some of them are performing Hajj for the very first time and
they are bound to make mistakes.
Inshallah, we have not gotten any
challenges that are beyond our capacity to control. Every challenge is being
controlled.
Hajj is a convergence of millions of
people from all over the planet ,how do our contingent find their way around?
I want to use this opportunity to talk
to our Pilgrims from Nigeria on the importance of the Nusuk Card. Some of the
Nusuk Cards, as we are viewing now, we are distributing some in Nigeria. I was
happy to gather and bring some to Nigeria as a test run and it worked.They have
been given in the Nusuk Card. Others will be given in Medina immediately
on arrival.
The importance of the Card is to be able to identify Nigerian
Pilgrims in the Holyland. Because the Nusuk Card will be a pass to all our
spiritual sites. Either in Makkah, Medina.Without the Nusuk Card, you cannot
have access to those sites. And the Nusuk Card must be on all pilgrims at every
point in time to avoid embarrassment.
They should keep it very, very well.
They must get it and they must always go out with the Nusuk Card. Because you
can’t even get on the bus, not to
mention getting to Medina. And if you don’t go to Medina or Arafat, you have
not performed Hajj.
ALAKIJA WOLE
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