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The National Chairman, Hijrah Organisation of Nigeria, Professor Yusuf ‘Lanre Badmas has blamed indiscipline for perrenial challenges on hajj operations in the country.
Badmas a former board member of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) expressed the observation during an interview with newsmen in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital.
According to him, the pilgrims were not always patient enough after completing the Hajj rites and they are eager to come back home thereby embark on unnecessary agitations with the pilgrim officials and not allowing the lessons of the spiritual pilgrimage to pass through them.
Similarly, he stressed the need for officials of NAHCON to always have alternative plans incase they have challenges or hitches in their initial arrangements while state officials of the pilgrims board must always be in contact with their pilgrims on the date of their departure and guide against keeping them in perpetual suspense .
The University lecturer also lauded President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu for returning the National Hajj Commission (NAHCON) from the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) to the office of the Vice President.
According to him, the decision to return the responsibility of hajj operations to the office of the Vice President will greatly improve the service delivery of the commission and free it from unecessary bureaucracies.
He added that the decision would also fast track the operations of the commission with little or no delay.
He recalled that at inception, the commission was initially under the portfolio of the office of the Vice President before it was transferred to the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.
“That was how it was when Atiku Abubakar was the Vice President under President Olusegun Obasanjo, it was directly under him through the Hajj committee which was transformed into Hajj commission.
“I remember very well what Atiku did was to bring onboard the Hajj desk in his office and knowledgeable people were chosen to supervise the appointment of people who served in the committee of Hajj commission and made himself available in case any problem arose then” he stated.
While commenting on the rate of extant hardship being currently endured by the populace, the University don appealed to Federal Government to look into making a policy that will bring ease and succour on the people.
He suggested that President Tinubu should rally round himself with God-fearing religious leaders from both Christianity and Islam in the administration of his government so as to share opinions and policies with them on what he would embark upon and way forward for the nation.
He also urged the Federal and the State governments to inaugurate price control agencies in their states in order to check the trend of overpricing of commodities by the traders whom according to him, are bringing sufferings on the consumers and the poor citizens and stressed the need to activate the price control mechanism to ease the hardship Nigerians are currently passing through.
He said “I also believe that the various states can be inspired to reintroduce price control agencies because the market men and women seem to have unlimited freedom, if you buy a commodity at #1,000 today by tomorrow they may decide arbitrarily that they want to sell it at #2,000 or #3,000.
“This is our appeal to His Excellency the President that he should remember the masses who voted for him, any policy that will bring hardship and suffering on the people, should be avoided” he lamented.
According to him, the withdrawal of subsidy on fuel has launched a moment of suffering , difficulty for the masses and wondered that as the citizens were yet to recover from the shock when the price of petroleum was jacked up and palliative measures were about to be introduced, Nigerians again withnessed another sharp increase in the price of the product.
Badmas also commended the Kwara State Governor, Abdulrahman AbdulRazaq for granting Muslim Ummah the age-long aspiration to make the first day of Muharram, the first month of the Islamic Calendar, a work-free day annually.
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