The National Hajj Commission of Nigeria, (NAHCON) is yet to pay airlines that airlifted Nigerian pilgrims to Saudi Arabia for the 2023 Hajj, two weeks after the end of the holy pilgrimage.
The commission had contracted five airlines — Max Air, Flynas, Air Peace, Aero Contractors and Azman Air — to airlift 75,000 state pilgrims to 2023 hajj.
It also approved Arik Air and Value Jet to participate in the airlift of 20,000 pilgrims allocated to licensed private tour operators.
On 31 July, 2023, the last batch of Nigerian pilgrims were ferried back home, officially ending the 2023 hajj operations.
Investigations revealed that two weeks after the end of the hajj operations, majority of the approved airlines are still being owed by NAHCON, a clear breach of the 2023 Hajj Airlift Agreement.
Article 4.2 of the 2023 Hajj Airlift Agreement provides that NAHCON shall pay the air carriers 50% of the total agreed sum after signing of the airlift agreement and presentation of a bank guarantee.
The commission would pay another 35% upon completion of the outbound airlift to Saudi Arabia.
The article also provides that the airlines would be paid 10% after evacuation of 50% of inbound pilgrims back to Nigeria; while the remaining 5% would be paid to the airlines after reconciliation.
In clear violations of the agreement, this newspaper revealed that the commission only paid some of the airlines the second tranche after the commencement of the inbound journey.
One of the airlines’ officials who spoke to our reporter in confidence said that his company got its second tranche of 35% a day after the commencement of the outbound journey in the first week of July.
“This has over-stretched our finances and threatened our obligations to our financiers,” the official who was not authorized to speak told this newspaper at the weekend.
It was also gathered that the commission’s violations of the airlift agreement by not releasing funds had almost crippled the airlift during the outbound operations as many airlines couldn’t position aircraft for the operation.
Thousands of pilgrims also risked missing the hajj because of the delay in visa processing occasioned by NAHCON’s late remittance of funds to the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.
Consequently, the CBN couldn’t remit the funds to the pilgrims’ agencies and tour operators’ bank accounts in Saudi Arabia for the payment of hajj services.
In its reaction, NAHCON through its spokesperson, Mousa Ubandawaki, said that the visa issuance suspension was due to “technical hitches,” blaming a “federal government policy” that bar CBN from remitting funds to foreign-based accounts. A claim that was found not be true.
The commission, later in a statement by one of its spokesperson, Fatima Sanda Usara, admitted that NAHCON had breached the airlift agreement by not releasing funds as expected while reacting to the protest by thousands of tour operators pilgrims stranded in Lagos.
She said: “In fairness to both Arik (which was assigned to airlift 7,000 tour operators pilgrims) and its partner, funds that were supposed to be advanced for the engagement are yet to be released at the time of transporting the pilgrims.
“This is due to certain financial restrictions, a development that crippled the agreement despite NAHCON’s assurances.”
Vice President Kashim Shettima had had cause to intervened and directed CBN to process the payment despite the late remittance by NAHCON.
However, instead of admitting its failure to transfer funds to CBN in time, the commission ended up blaming President Bola Tinubu for creating the challenge. The commission revealed this while seeking for three-day extension from Saudi Arabian authorities.
In a letter dated 21 June, 2023, with Reference No: NAHCON/AN/43/, the commission blamed President Tinubu for the causing the financial hiccups that marred 2023 operations.
Addressed to Saudi’s Vice Minister of Hail and Umrah, Dr. Abdel Fattah Mishaat, titled: “Request for Extension of Deadline,” NAHCON Chairman, Zikirullah Kunle Hassan specifically blamed President Tinubu for halting transfer of funds abroad.
The letter, signed by Hassan read: “There was a change of government in Nigeria and the new government directed a halt in transfer of government funds which caused serious delay in the transfer of funds into the International Bank Accounts (BAN) and this delayed our processing of pilgrims’ visa.”
Meanwhile, about 29,000 pilgrims from Lagos, Ogun, Osun, Oyo, Niger, Zamfara, Sokoto and Kebbi states have asked NAHCON to refund the $100 deducted from their BTA ahead of the 2023 hajj.
The commission had deducted the BTA of the 75,000 pilgrims and share to the four local airlines – Max Air, Air Peace, Azman Air and Aero Contractors.- that refused to sign the airlift agreement because of the Sudan conflict.
The local air carriers had earlier demanded an increase per pilgrim as additional cost occasioned by additional flight time to Saudi Arabia because of the closure of the Sudan air space.
The Saudi Arabian -designated airline Flynas, which was the only carrier that signed the agreement despite the conflict in Sudan, was surprisingly excluded from the sharing even though it had over 29,000 pilgrims.
The Flynas pilgrims and their state officials, it was gathered, have already concluded arrangements to officially write NAHCON for the refund through a team of lawyers.
“We’ll first write the hajj commission for the refund of the $100 deducted from our BTA. That is the first stage.
“The response we get will determine our next line of action. Our team of lawyers have been briefed,” one of the pilgrims leading the refund campaign, Muhammad Idris Yusuf, said.
When contacted on the delay in the payment to the airliners, Ubandawaki said the delay was a result of the discrepancy in the exchange rate.
According to him, the exchange rate at the time the MoU was signed was around N400 to $1, adding that at the conclusion of the exercise, the exchange rate skyrocketed to about N700 to $1.
Mousa, however, promised that the airliners would be paid from now to this month’s end.
Source: Daily Nigerian.
Niger Republic: ECOWAS’ War And Peace Options, By Tunde Rahman
Are wars and peace mutually exclusive? This is one important question that has dominated the attention of scholars and students in the area of conflict resolution across time and space. The answer, however, varies with different schools of scholarship. For instance, one academic contends that both war and peace are mutually exclusive, as a nation cannot engage in war and peace at the same time to resolve a conflict with another country. Countering that postulation, another scholar argues that war and peace may be two distinctively different options in conflict resolution. However, preparing for war and preparing for peace are not mutually exclusive, stating that the two can go hand in hand in resolving conflicts.
The Economic Community of West African States seems to be lending credence to the latter thesis in their response to the July 26, 2023 coup in Niger Republic, a country of around 26 million people. Four days after the coup, ECOWAS Chairman, Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu, summoned an extraordinary summit of Heads of State and Government on the crisis, and in their resolution, the leaders issued a 7-day ultimatum to the Nigerien junta to end the coup. Realising that the situation had not changed in that country even at the expiration of that ultimatum, the West African leaders, in an emergency summit on August 10, restated their demand for the reinstatement of the deposed President Mohamed Bazoum. However, this time they activated the standby force for possible intervention in Niger, saying all options are on the table including ‘use of force as a last resort’.
In dangling both war and peace options to the Niger military, the regional leaders were bent on restoring constitutional order in Niger and ensuring that a final end is put to the macabre dance of coupists around the Sahel region.
Although they are playing up the two cards in resolving the crisis, it would appear most of the ECOWAS leaders including its Chairman, President Tinubu, actually prefer that the Niger impasse is resolved through peaceful means as war is an ill wind that blows no good. As the popular saying goes: it’s only the beginning of a war that can be determined; no one can predict its end.
Amid the slamming of sanctions on those preventing the return to power of democratically elected President Bazoum and ECOWAS Defence Chiefs’ declaration on Thursday in Ghana that it was ready to deploy standby force in Niger if diplomacy fails, a peaceful resolution of the crisis remains attractive. This is not implying that the usurpers in Niger have not been recalcitrant. While the ECOWAS leaders were still considering the options open to them in the light of the crisis, General Tchiani had swiftly and defiantly moved to form his government, apparently to force the regional leaders into seeing it as a full-fledged regime and thus a fait accompli. During the week also, he dispatched the civilian Prime Minister he appointed, Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, to Chad for talks. The latest is the ill-advised plan to slam the deposed President Bazoum with treason charges.
However, there is no gainsaying the fact that war will come at a heavy cost. War in Niger will further deepen poverty in a country that presently has about 41 per cent of its population living in extreme poverty, destabilise the Sahel region and throw up a refugee situation that may not spare her neighbours particularly Nigeria.
It is important to note that the United States of America and France have military bases in Niger. In the event of war, these countries’ troops may plunge in, thus throwing external forces into the conflict with disastrous and unpredictable consequences.
Also, if caution and restraint are not applied, Niger could go the way of Mali whose leaders hired mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group to help fight an insurgency after they overthrew the democratic government three years ago and kicked out the French troops. Indeed, support for Russia has appeared to surge in Niger since after the coup with supporters of the junta waving the Russian flag at several rallies.
It is perhaps because war may bring unintended consequences that some have activated the peace option. In Nigeria, a group of prominent Islamic scholars christened Intervention Team had met President Tinubu seeking his approval for the team to mediate in the crisis. The President granted the approval. Last Saturday, the clerics visited Niamey, Niger’s capital, where they deliberated with the coupists, led by their leader, General Abdourahmane Tchiani, for about three hours. The junta warmly received the scholars at the Presidential Palace, rolling out a red carpet reception for them. Only two weeks or so ago, the same junta had given a team of negotiators led by former military Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar (rtd), a cold shoulder, confining the delegation to Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey.
During his meeting with the Islamic scholars led by Sheik Bala Lau, General Tchiani apologised for the way the military leaders reacted to the delegation led by General Abdulsalami, saying it was to register their anger to ECOWAS for issuing an ultimatum to them to quit power without hearing their side of the story. Tchiani traced the historical ties between Nigeria and Niger, stating that the two countries were not only neighbours, but brothers and sisters who should resolve issues amicably. He said the military leaders’ doors were open to explore diplomacy and peace in resolving the matter. Both the coup leaders and Intervention Team agreed to intensify the option of dialogue in resolving the political crisis in that country.
The way and manner the junta received the scholars’ intervention is instructive: General Abdourahmane holds the scholars in reverence and high esteem being a Muslim himself. He wore a still and sombre demeanour throughout the meeting, listening to them with rapt attention. It was apparent he was looking up to the Ulammas for a peaceful resolution of the crisis.
Commenting after the meeting with General Tchiani, a member of the intervention team and Chief Missioner of Ansarudeen Society of Nigeria, Sheik Ahmad Abdulrahman, had told journalists in Niamey that both parties had fruitful discussions, adding that, “We will now go back home and report to President Tinubu what we have discussed and press it on him that war is not an option in resolving the matter.”
Let me at this juncture point out that the decision taken thus far by the ECOWAS Heads of State on the Niger impasse was taken by the regional leaders as a bloc and not a unilateral decision of Nigeria or any of the 15 countries of the community for that matter. In approving the clerics’ mediation in the crisis, however, President Tinubu has demonstrated that he is welcoming of all efforts and measures that would make the intervention of the ECOWAS leaders easy and successful. This deserves commendation. By giving his consent to the clerics’ mediation, the President seems to be showing support for a peaceful resolution of the crisis instead of war. President Tinubu has shown he is a peaceful leader and not a warmonger.
The experiences and political inclinations of leaders cannot, it must be said, be discounted in the conduct of their country’s foreign policy. President Tinubu is an avowed and widely acknowledged democrat who put his life on the line along with other other pro-democratic forces in fighting for the dislodging of military dictatorship in Nigeria. His commitment to democratic development and sustainability in West Africa and throughout the continent is thus understandable and commendable. It is instructive that when he addressed leaders of the African Union at their last meeting in Kenya, President Tinubu stressed the importance of deepening democracy in Africa and ensuring that the culture of coups becomes a thing of the past. This, he argued, is the best way to ensure good governance which will guarantee that the kind of exploitative ‘scramble for Africa’ which had destructive consequences for the continent in the past never happens again.
It is also important to note that the strong opposition of ECOWAS leaders to the coup in Niger is also indirectly a clear signal to other military regimes in the region that there is ultimately no alternative to the institutionalization of democracy there. While there is no guarantee that a democratically elected government will be perfect and not make mistakes and this does not exclude President Bazoum’s government, the irreducible and inviolable principle must be that changes of government must always be through the ballot box in accordance with the tenets of democracy. The predominant experience all over Africa is that non-democratic changes of government through military coups have most often worsened rather than resolved the alleged ills that prompted the coups in the first place.
Given Niger’s close historical relations and close cultural affinity with Nigeria, President Tinubu naturally desires that the democratic culture must be continuously deepened in both countries in the best interest of their citizens. He believes that everything must be done to avoid war between both countries as this will have no positive implications for either of the too and this is the basis for his pro-dialogue posture. This is a mark of good, sensitive and responsive leadership. Ultimately, however, ensuring the sustenance of democracy in both countries is the best way of ensuring harmonious and mutually beneficial relationships between them. President Tinubu’s pro-peace stance is rooted in good reason, in the enlightened interest of the member-nations, particularly those nations contiguous to Niger Republic, and will certainly be further pursued in resolving the crisis.
*Former Editor of THISDAY on Sunday, Rahman is a Presidential Aide.