Bayelsa Muslim pilgrims board seeks more personnel to ease Hajj operations

The board’s Executive Secretary, Mrs 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.

Mrs Dokubo-Asari spoke on the sideline of Post-Arafat meeting organised by the National Hajj commission of Nigeria (NAHCON), on Sunday in Makkah. She said that the situation had made managing Hajj operation in the state extremely tasking.

”In Bayelsa the problem I have is that we are understaffed; from the Muslim wing we just have two people who do this operation, myself and my Chairman and it is really hectic.

“We have to always work, 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.”

The executive secretary described the 2023 Hajj operation as very smooth for Bayelsa pilgrims.

“Concerning the ongoing 2023 hajj operation I can say for me 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 is just remaining the farewell Dawaf, 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 because of the impact of the sun.”

On the accommodation arrangement in Mina, Mrs Dokubo-Asari said that though the tents were congested, no pilgrim from Bayelsa was left to sleep outside, unlike many states that had such issue.