BY ABDULLAHI ISAH, MAIDUGURI
The Borno State Pilgrims Welfare Board has commenced inoculation exercise for about 1,700 intending pilgrims in the state who are to be airlifted to Saudi Arabia to perform the 2017 Hajj pilgrimage.
The Executive Secretary of the Board, Alhaji Ajiya Gana Bukar who disclosed this to newsmen, assured that the airlift for this year’s Hajj in the state will commence on Thursday, 10th August 2017, adding that all the intending pilgrims would be properly secured at the camp, the screening centre and the airport until they are airborne.
He said the inoculation became necessary in order to avoid the Saudi Authorities’ incessant accusations and allegations that “Nigerian pilgrims do not go through the necessary health exercise, but their Yellow Cards are fraudulently presented to the Saudi officials, showing that they have been inoculated.”
Alhaji Bukar expressed gratitude to Officers and Men of the 7 Division of the Nigerian Army, Maiduguri for deploying a battalion of troops to the Borno state Muslim pilgrims camp to secure the pilgrims from attacks by Boko Haram militants.
“Following series of meetings with all the security agencies in the state, adequate arrangements have been put in place to secure the intending pilgrims up to the boarding point”, Alhaji Bukar said.
While inspecting the inoculation exercise of the intending pilgrims in the metropolis, the executive secretary assured that “every intending pilgrim in the state would be inoculated.”
He said; ” the ongoing inoculation exercise is to avoid the Saudi Authorities’ incessant accusations that Nigerian pilgrims do not go through this necessary health exercise, but their Yellow Cards are fraudulently presented to the Saudi officials, showing that they have been inoculated.
“We are taking the inoculation exercise very seriously this year, because the Saudi officials have always accused their Nigerian counterparts of just filling the Yellow Cards for the intending pilgrims without inoculating them”, he added.
“We want to ensure that the exercise actually takes place this year without hitches, and no intending pilgrim escapes it or is mistakenly left out. The exercise is taking place simultaneously in Northern and Southern Borno – the intending pilgrims in the five local government areas of Biu, Bayo, Shani, Hawul and Kwaya-Kusar in Southern Borno are being inoculated in Biu Local Government Area, while their counterparts from the remaining 22 local government areas are having theirs in Maiduguri metropolis.
