We need more hands for hajj operation, says Bayelsa pilgrims board

THE Bayelsa State Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Board has appealed to the state government to deploy more personnel to the board to ease its operations.

The board’s Executive Secretary, Amirah Dokubo-Asari, who made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), said there are just two people managing issues that have to do with Muslim pilgrimage under the board.

Dokubo-Asari spoke on the sideline of the post-Arafat meeting organised by the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) earlier in the week in Makkah.

She said the situation had made managing hajj operation in the state extremely taxing.

Dokubo-Asari said: ”At the Bayelsa State Pilgrims Welfare Board, the problem is that we are understaffed. At the Muslim wing, we have just two people who do this operation, myself and my chairman, and it is really hectic.

“We have to work always; we don’t have helping hands; we have to make sure everybody is safe. So, it is really tiring sometimes.

“We have been doing it and we will continue to do it, but I will like the state government to actually deploy some Muslim civil servants to help us with the hajj operations, so that they can lighten the weight of the job that we do here.

“Hajj operation isn’t made for just two people. Basically, the load is really too much and we will surely need some helping hands.”

She described the 2023 hajj operation as very smooth for the state’s pilgrims.

“Concerning the ongoing 2023 hajj operation, I can say it has actually been smooth. I brought in 59 pilgrims to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and, to God be the glory, each of them is sound and safe.

“The operation has been going smoothly. We have done the whole rites of hajj; it just remains the farewell tawaf, which is the circumambulation of the Ka’aba.

“The only challenge we faced is the weather in Saudi Arabia, which is really very hot and makes people get very tired,” Dokubo-Asari noted.

On the accommodation arrangement in Mina, she said that though the tents were congested, no pilgrim from Bayelsa State was left to sleep outside, unlike many states that had such an experience.

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