The Lagos government says it will refund prospective pilgrims over the inability of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) to secure proposed slots for the 2022 Hajj operations.

Commissioner for Home Affairs, Anofiu Elegushi, disclosed this on Tuesday during a news conference at the Bagauda Kaltho Press Centre, Alausa, Ikeja.

Mr Elegushi said a full refund would be made quickly. According to him, the government would publish the names of the stranded intending pilgrims in a national newspaper as the first batch for the Year 2023 Hajj operations.

The state would also put on hold sales of forms for 2023 Hajj, pending confirmation of the actual number of slots available, while giving the published names first offer of refusal, added the commissioner.

Mr Elegushi said even though 1,562 slots were allocated to Lagos by NAHCON for this year’s Hajj, 1,598 pilgrims, including those from approved private organisations in Lagos were transported by government.

“You will recall that the COVID-19 pandemic did not allow any airlifting of pilgrims since 2020, this gave rise to an increase in the backlog of intending pilgrims since then,” he explained. “However, when the Saudi Arabia authorities gave the go-ahead for pilgrims to be airlifted this year 2022, we had over 4,000 intending pilgrims that have registered with the state.”

Mr Elegushi disclosed that Lagos received 250 additional slots from NAHCON based on the expectation of additional 5,000 slots promised by the Saudi authorities.

“Unfortunately, the Saudi Authorities declined the 5,000 slots while we had gone ahead to allocate the 250 slots awaiting final processing and visa from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” he stated.

(NAN)