The Independent Hajj Reporters (IHR) has called on the upper chamber to reconstitute its adhoc committee on pilgrims accommodation, logistics onshore and offshore activities with a view to thoroughly and objectively look at ways of improving hajj operations in the country.
The adhoc committee, headed by Senator Adamu Aliero had a week before the senate went on recess presented its report at plenary.
In a statement jointly signed by IHR national coordinator, Ibrahim
Muhammad, it said :“However, the report has already been discredited by virtually all hajj stakeholders as a made up of fabrications’’.
The first person to find fault with the report of the Aliero committee
is the Nigerian Consular General to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Mr. Mohammed Yunusa who raised serious integrity questions on the reports.
Yunusa, in a telephone interview published by Premium Times on 22nd of October said :“The Adamu Aliero-led committee only “concocted lies”
aimed at disparaging the chairman of NAHCON, Abdullahi Mohammed’’.
He also alleged that the Aliero led team did not meet with a single
organisation involved in Hajj affairs during their visit to Saudi
Arabia
He asked: “How can you say you are investigating the conduct of Hajj operations and officials? You came all the way to Saudi Arabia and refused to meet with the ministry of Hajj, the Adilla in Madinah,
hotel owners, caterers, car syndicate and Muassassa?”
Likewise, a daily newspaper of October 29 reported that the chairman of Zamfara State Hajj Commission, Alhaji Abubakar S. Pawa Dambo, who doubled as the chairman of state pilgrims welfare boards chairmen forum said:
“What the Aliero committee said in its report was only their own perception and imagination. He challenged the committee to
back up their claims with facts and figures. He said it was unfair for
the Aliero committee to draw such wrong conclusion even though it
never deemed it fit to invite them during its sittings.
“More worrisome to us are the counter allegations made byNAHCON against the findings of the committee that:
‘’The Ad hoc Committee invited one IG Wala to testify before it on
matters that are currently subject of litigation before two courts
with suit Nos FCT/HC/CV/3018/17 and CR/96/18.
That the Committee as part of its recommendations made a
counter-recommendation regarding a Saudi Service Provider on a matter in which there is a ruling by a Saudi Court in Makkah on 5th Muharram 1439; the same Saudi based blacklisted accommodation provider that Senator Adamu Aliero’s committee met in Saudi Arabia as alleged by Nigerian Consular General to Jeddah, Mr. Mohammed Yunusa.
The Committee did not reflect the explanations made by the Commission on many issues during the public hearing conducted by it in which some of the participants were compelled to swear with the Holy Qur’an while some affirmed thereby contravening the provisions of the Oaths Act.
