President Muhammadu Buhari is planning
to end the federal government
sponsorship of hajjis to Israel and Saudi
Arabia, stating that, pilgrims will have to
sponsor themselves on the sacred
journey.
John-Kennedy Opara, the executive
secretary of Nigerian Christian Pilgrims
Commission (NCPC), made this known to the
State House correspondents on July 13,
Monday.
Earlier this day he briefed the president on
the activities of the commission.
Meanwhile, Opara said that Buhari will
continue to inspire the insitution as it moves
towards self-sustenance.
The executive secretary further clarified that
Buhari decided to encourage the two
religious bodies to become self-sustaining by
making pilgrims to sponsor their pilgrimage
bills and therefore end government’s
sponsorship.
He said: “I came as invited by the President
to brief him on the activities of the Nigerian
Christian Pilgrim Commission.
“You will agree with me earlier my colleague
the chairman of the Hajj commission had
come to brief him.
“So, I had to tell him where we are, how we
started the commission and where we are
today and our prayers.
“And I want to say that the President was
very happy with the commission; he said
‘you have done very well, the commission
has done very well and as far as we are
concerned, we need to support the Nigeria
Christian Pilgrims Commission as well as the
Hajj commission
“You are already aware, he has approved one
dollar to N160 for the concessional exchange
rate for this year’s pilgrimage operation.
“He has also agreed that he will continue to
encourage us, especially as we drive to
ensure self-sustenance, to make sure that
the pilgrims are able to pay for their
pilgrimage, removing government’s
sponsorship.
“This is a journey and we are that we are
going to succeed.
“So, he was very happy with the entire
process, starting from nowhere to get to
where we are today and he said, ‘this is
commendable’, praying that God will help us
to be a source of strength to Mr President.
“So that the Federal and State Governments
will spend the necessary resources on other
things while the pilgrimage itself will be self-
funding as we progress and as time goes on.”
Opara added that NCPC would continue to
encourage self-sponsorship of pilgrimage in
view of the decreasing resources across the
three arms of administration.
The executive secretary asked wealthy and
well-meaning people and organisations to
help with the sponsorship of pilgrims.
He also advised those to take part in the
commission’s pilgrimage lottery to allow
them to perform the pilgrimage.
There had been reports that Nigerian
embassy in Saudi Arabia allegedly failed to
give Buhari’s wife Aisha , and her five
children the VIP treatment that generally
comes with being members of Nigeria’s first
family as they come for Hajj (Umrah).
But Ahmed Umar, the consular-general of
the embassy, denied these reports adding
that it didn’t give any preferences to the
family of ex vice president Namadi Sambo.

nice

Good one

Good development no more wasteful spending

#SponsorYourHabit

ds man is making a nice move oo

Correct man

If true, I'll support him 100% on this. I have always agitated for this, politicians will be sponsoring people that doesn't know anything about the religion, some will even be going twice, thrice etc. Holy land na personal religion exercise, make we dey spend our money go jare

Heading should be: Buhari to remove subsidy on hajj & Jerusalem pilgrims