Adesola Receives 2023 Hajj Report, Pledges Early, Hitch-Free 2024 Exercise
By: Wisdom Acka and Prudence Okonna
Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has said that it will commence early preparations to ensure hitch-free Hajj operations in 2024.
Permanent Secretary, FCTA, Olusade Adesola, who stated this while receiving report of the 2023 Hajj exercise in his office, added that early preparations would reduce some of the hitches experienced during the previous exercise.
A statement from the Director of Information and Communication, FCT, Muhammad Hazat Sule, said Adesola, however, lauded the contributions of the Director, FCT Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Board, Abubakar Adamu Evuti, and the FCT Ministerial Team on the 2023 Hajj Operation, led by Bashir Muhammad, for successfully conducting the exercise.
His words: “On behalf of the FCT Management, I appreciate your selfless sacrifice during this Hajj operations. There were many situations that stretched our capacity, but your intervention helped us to successfully manage the situations.”
“When the arrangements were not synchronized last year, there were a lot of challenges, but when we put your Team in place for support, we saw the success we achieved and interestingly, the pilgrims also appreciated your efforts,” he noted.
The Permanent Secretary told Ministerial Team that he got briefings from Evuti about the commendable role and support the Team rendered; saying “My greatest joy is that under me, you (Director, Human Resource Management) led this delegation, and you are obviously leaving good foot prints for us”.
He pledged that the FCT Administration would study report and forward recommendations to Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) on the issues under his purview for action.
According to him, consideration for an air carrier with adequate capacity for FCT contingent in the subsequent Hajj operations would be part of the recommendations to the SGF.
Adesola also revealed that, following the success of the Team, a similar Ministerial Team was constituted to ensure hitch-free operations by the Christian Pilgrims Welfare Board.
Earlier, Chairman of the Ministerial Team, Bashir Muhammad, while presenting the report disclosed that his Team confronted identified challenges of the Board head-on immediately after inauguration.
Commending the intervention of the Permanent Secretary, Muhammad said that the grey areas the Board had with the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) were swiftly resolved.
Muhammad reiterated that the report contained the entire exercise, from onshore to offshore, including all activities, ranging from the intending pilgrims’ orientation, movement to the Holy land, and return of last batch of airlift of the pilgrims back to Nigeria.
