30 Nigerians died performing 2024 Hajj

The National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) has confirmed that 30 Nigerian pilgrims died performing this year’s hajj in Saudi Arabia.

Chairman/Chief Executive Officer, NAHCON, Jalal Ahmad Arabi, disclosed this on Monday during a post-Hajj media briefing in Abuja.

Generally, more than 1,000 pilgrims lost their lives during the recently concluded 2024 hajj due to an excessive heat wave. Arabi stated that the Commission did all it could to ensure that pilgrims were protected. Unfortunately, Nigeria lost 30 citizens, of which five died from the heat wave.

The NAHCON boss, however, thanked President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for coming to the aid of the Commission with the N90 billion intervention, which he said helped to reduce the burden of the fluctuating foreign exchange rates at the time.

He said, “One of the greatest challenges we faced during this year’s Hajj was the skyrocketing of the exchange rate due to government policy to float the naira. Recall that by the final deadline of February 12, the unforeseen spike in foreign exchange rates had totally complicated matters, necessitating fresh adjustment of the year’s Hajj fare from the initially announced N4.9 million. The financial projection after the foreign exchange liberalisation was that each pilgrim would have to top up about N3.6 million in addition to the initial payment.”

Arabi added that the situation impelled urgent intervention, and NAHCON promptly engaged the Federal Government to mitigate the effects of the high cost of foreign currency with an appeal to approve a concessionary rate of N850 as the exchange rate for the Dollar component of the Hajj fare.

“We are grateful to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for his swift approval of N90 billion instead,” he said.

He added that NAHCON devised a distribution strategy for the N90 billion, which played a crucial role in ensuring that all stakeholders associated with the 2024 Hajj benefited from the financial stability through that federal government’s support.

“Each pilgrim was supported with N1,637,369.87 from the N90 billion except for pilgrims under the Hajj Savings Scheme (HSS), who enjoyed more. Hence, all registered intending pilgrims, except those on HSS, were required to pay a balance of N1,918,094.87 since the N90 billion was not sufficient to make up for the balance,” he noted.

While commending stakeholders who were involved in this year’s Hajj, the NAHCON boss said he was proud to report that notwithstanding the reservations held by some individuals, which he understood were within their rights, the 2024 Hajj was a success.

“This board under my leadership remains committed to learning from these experiences and improving our processes to better serve the pilgrims in future endeavours. NAHCON will continue to assess and improve our processes to better serve the pilgrims and uphold the sanctity and significance of Hajj,” he said.