The Oyo State Pilgrims Welfare Board, Muslim Wing, has said it would commence medical screening and orientation exercise for intending pilgrims on Thursday 4th and Saturday 6th, May 2023.
The Board’s Chairman, Professor Sayed Malik, disclosed this in a statement, on Wednesday.
The statement says intending pilgrims within Ibadan and Ibarapa would be attended to on Thursday 4th May, while people from Oyo, Ogbomosho, Oke-Ogun and other cities are scheduled for Saturday, May 6th.
Prof. Malik noted, in the statement, that the exercise would commence at 8 am daily and urged the intending pilgrims to be prompt and attend accordingly.
International Passport
In another development, the Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, has warned citizens looking for speedy, unreasonable means to obtain the Nigeria International passport to desist from such act or risk falling into the hands of fraudulent officials.
Aregbesola, who gave the warning while inaugurating a new passport office in Oyo Town, Oyo State, advised that intending travellers just need to plan their journey ahead of time to save themselves from avoidable delay.
He explained that the rationale behind locating another passport office in Oyo State is that the Federal Government intends to give Nigerians seamless access to the travel document, since the only office in the state, located in Ibadan, could no longer meet the demands of applicants across the thirty-three Local Government Areas of the state.
Emphasising the need for more passport offices to meet the ever growing demands for the document, the minister expressed the readiness of the Federal Government to go into private partnership.
Aregbesola disclosed that the Nigeria Immigration Service is also poised to clear the backlog of passport applications which was partly caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In his speech, the Chairman, Oyo Metropolitan Development Association, Archbishop Ayo Ladigbolu, promised that the community would continue to see the project as its own by giving necessary support.
Ladigbolu, who traced the history of the passport office to year 2016, recalled the roles played by the late Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi, to make the project a reality, saying it testified to the relevance of traditional rulers in the socioeconomic development at the grassroots.
The Minister was welcomed to Oyo Town by the quarter guard of the Nigeria Immigration Service and was also received by top officials of sister agencies, as well as indigenes and eminent personalities in the town.
PIAK
