The Executive Chairman, National Hajj Commission of Nigeria, Jalal Arabi, said the commission has commenced preparations for the 2025 Hajj.

The Assistant Director of public affairs, NAHCON, Fatima Sanda-Usara, said in a statement on Tuesday that Mr Arabi made this known while bidding farewell to the last batch of Nigerian pilgrims in Saudi Arabia.

The NAHCON boss expressed the hope that the commission would achieve greater success in the conduct of the 2025 Hajj based on the “lessons learned this year.”

Mr Arabi also expressed gratitude to the Almighty Allah for the successful completion of the 2024 Hajj return journey.

He commended stakeholders for their cooperation and the pilgrims for praying for their leaders at the federal and state levels.

The chairman urged them to continue to pray for the success of their leaders and to maintain good conduct.

Mr Arabi described the 2024 Hajj achievements as a promise fulfilled.

According to him, during the first phase of the 2024 Hajj operation, NAHCON ran a total of 121 flights, which had now been reduced to 119 flights for the return journey.

He explained that the reduction in flights was attributed to the maximum utilisation of seats during the return journeys.

Mr Arabi said, “The return journey ends three days ahead of schedule, having been earlier planned to end by July 19. The commission’s chartered airlines took 27 days to transport all the pilgrims into the kingdom during the first phase of the hajj journey, with the return phase now lasting 25 days.

”By the 25th day of the outbound flight from Nigeria, a total of 47,171 pilgrims were transported, while 50,091 were able to return to Nigeria within the same span of 25 days in the second phase.” 

 (NAN)