Niger State Pilgrims Welfare Board has planned to repay all payment by intending pilgrims for the 2021 hajj exercise in Saudi Arabia.
The executive Secretary of the State Pilgrims Board, Umar Makun Lapai, who stated this on Thursday in Minna the State Capital, assured the pilgrims of the board’s readiness to make 100% refund to the pilgrims who want their money as it was done in 2020.
Recent report by the National Hajj Commission stated that the authorities of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have limited the 2021 hajj exercise to residence of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia due to Covid-19 pandemic.
A statement by the Board’s information officer, Hassan Idris, said the Niger State pilgrims welfare board has already accepted the cancellation of this year’s hajj exercise as an act of the Almighty Allah.
He therefore appealed to intending pilgrims to exercise patience as the board awaits further instruction from National Hajj Commission of Nigeria NAHCON on modalities to be adopted.
NAHCON in a statement on the cancellation of the 2021 hajj exercise, urged intending Pilgrims from Nigeria to be calm and see it as divine design.
“NAHCON respects the decision of Saudi Arabia in this regard no matter how painful that decision may be to us and to intending pilgrims worldwide.
“We have accepted that it is Allah’s divine design that multitudes will again this year not perform the Hajj,
Our prayer is that we collectively turn to Him in repentance so that He admits us for Hajj in the coming years”, it said.
Some Nigerians accepted the cancellation of the Hajj for foreign intending Pilgrims in good faith. A medical expert on hajj affairs in Nigeria, Dr Ibrahim Kana praised Saudi Arabia for the decision because Covid-19 has proved to be a dangerous, evasive and lethal disease with great potential for mutation.
“It could have been a careless act on the part of Saudi Health authority if they allowed people from areas where a new variant of the virus has been reported”, he said.
Nneka Ukachukwu
