THE Executive Secretary of the Niger State Pilgrims Welfare Board, Alhaji Shehu Barwa Beji, has identified the introduction of biometric screening of intending pilgrims as one of the major challenges being encountered by Nigerian officials in airlifting intending pilgrims to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for this year’s Hajj.

Beji, on Wednesday in Minna at a media briefing, said the Saudi authorities, for the first time in history, were insisting on biometrics before the issuance of visas to intending pilgrims globally.

He said inadequate number of the biometric centres across the country had affected the airlift of the intending pilgrims from Nigeria as scheduled.

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He, however, said that with the intervention of the Federal Government through the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON), additional biometric centres were later approved by the Saudi government to speed up the preparation for the airlift of the over 40,000 intendingpilgrims from the country to Saudi Arabia.

“The situation was normalised with the addition of seven more centres to the already existing three in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, Lagos and kano states,” Beji added.

According to him, the airlift of the 3,200 intending pilgrims from the state was expected to commence on Sunday, August 5, as scheduled by the board.

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