S/Arabia Insists On Deportation Of 1,000 Detained Female Pilgrims

The National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) stated yesterday that it would transport back to Nigeria all the 1,000 female pilgrims detained in Saudi Arabia.

Alhaji Abdullahi Muhammad, the national commissioner, operation, disclosed this in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.

He said that the commission had no other choice than to bring back the affected pilgrims as the Saudi authorities had insisted that they must be brought back.

The female pilgrims were denied entry into the holy land because they travelled without a “Maharam”’ (male companion).

Muhammad, however, insisted that the commission had complied with all the rules on pilgrimage as agreed upon with the  Saudi authorities.

The chairman of the commission, Malam Muhammad Bello, had on Wednesday told the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs that the Mahram issue was never discussed before now with the Saudi officials.

He said the memorandum of understanding (MoU) it signed with the Saudi government for the 2012 Hajj had no provision on the issue.

Bello said the issue only came up when some Nigerian pilgrims arrived in the King Abdul’azeez Airport, Jeddah, on Sept. 23, adding that only Nigerian pilgrims were subjected to such treatment.

Muhammad expressed regret that the Saudi authorities had rebuffed all diplomatic moves by the commission and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

Meanwhile, the commission on Wednesday suspended the transportation of pilgrims to Saudi Arabia for 48 hours in order to resolve the matter.

So far 24,886 of the 95,000 Muslim pilgrims had been transported to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj by the commission.

First set of 510 arrive Kano
Meanwhile, five hundred and Ten (510) Nigerian female pilgrims were yesterday deported back to the country from Saudi Arabia, making the number of those deported to 681 so far.

The returned pilgrims were repatriated from the holy land via Malam Aminu Kano International Airport. They comprised pilgrims from Kano, Jigawa Katsina, Zamfara and Sokoto states.

Our correspondent who monitored their arrival at the Aminu Kano International Airport reports that most of the pilgrims had to be assisted by the officials as they could not walk to the waiting buses that would convey them to the Hajj Camp where they would be accommodated.

Officials of Kano State Pilgrims Board, led by the Executive Secretary, Laminu Rabi’u as well as the Amirul Hajj for Jigawa State, the Emir of Dutse, Alhaji Najib Adamu were on hand to receive the evacuated pilgrims.

Malam Musa Sayyadi, the only male pilgrim in the aircraft told our reporter that he decided to come back along with them because his wife was denied entry even though he was with her. He said that he suspected that the Saudi Authorities denied his entry because her passport was not bearing his name but her father’s name.

“I had to be with her throughout her sojourn which lasted five days to comfort her and other female pilgrims that were detained a long with her”, he said.

Tambuwal cautions against careless talk
Speaker of House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal yesterday cautioned Nigerians against careless statements capable of aggravating the touchy diplomatic spat between Nigeria and Saudi Arabia triggered by the detaining of 1,000 female Nigerian pilgrims.

Tambuwal  held early morning closed-door talks on Thursday with the Saudi ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Khalid Abdrabuh, on the matter.

The Saudi envoy assured the House speaker that the matter would be resolved by Friday.

At Thursday’s plenary, the chairman, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Nnena Elendu-Ukeje, told federal lawmakers that the ministries of interior and foreign affairs were presently in Saudi Arabia to engage in talks with the Saudi authorities in Mecca in a bid to resolve the melee.

Source: Leadership