Bauchi State Governor, Sen Bala Mohammed Abdulkadir has called on the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) to allow States handle the medical needs of their respective pilgrims during the Hajj exercise.
The Governor made the call while fielding questions from Journalists at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa International Airport, Bauchi on his return from the 2023 Hajj exercise.
Bala Mohammed, who described the exercise as a huge success so far, said that “However, we have issues of responsibility by the NAHCON which has taken over the responsibilities of healthcare services of the pilgrims both at Mecca, Medina and Arafat.”
According to him, “That has not given the pilgrims the best of healthcare services. Healthcare services, especially primary and secondary, are the responsibilities of the state and I think that we have to sit down and discuss that again.”
The Governor stressed that “because we cannot be looking away when our pilgrims are not given the best of the care services required, they have to be taken to designated facilities for attention where we have Doctors and Nurses to attend to them.”
“Again, the issue of camping at Muna, the Hajj Ministry of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has made some clarifications, there are some misdemeanors on the part of the international carriers that are taking their pilgrims to our own tents and so on, we want to ensure that this does not happen again.”
“Alhamdulillahi for the successful 2023 pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. I got back to Abuja since last week. While in Mecca, we made sure that we oversaw and supervised the welfare of our pilgrims in terms of transportation, accommodation, feeding, health and otherwise.”
The Governor added, “We have been able to give them good leadership and our pilgrims welfare board has done tremendously well. The accommodation was excellent and the food was also good, it was so far so good.”
“The exercise was smooth and successful, all the pilgrims engaged in the spiritual and religious exercise as expected, they prayed for us to succeed. By the grace of God, we will ensure a hitch-free return of all the pilgrims.”
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