The Federal Government yesterday faulted media reports that some Nigerian pilgrims are stranded in Saudi Arabia, saying the airlift of this year’s pilgrims is progressing according to schedule.
It also announced that, as at yesterday, over 80,000 of the pilgrims had been airlifted back to the country comprising of 70,239 regular and 10,000 international pilgrims.
Describing the 2011 pilgrimage exercise as remarkably better than last year’s, the government said there was no single incident of any of the pilgrims staying up to 24 hours at the airport based on the concrete arrangements put in place by the officials of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON).
Chairman of the Federal Government Committee on Aviation, who is also a Board member of NAHCON, Capt. Shehu Iyal, made the disclosures at a press conference in Abuja, saying the committee was able to successfully tackle the minor hitches that arose in the course of airlifting the 99,000 pilgrims back home.
He said: “Nobody is stranded, nobody will be stranded. The reason for making this assertion is because Nigeria has enough capacity to bring the pilgrims back home.