Kano State Pilgrims Welfare Board, has assured that it will transport 1,300 remaining state prospective pilgrims to Saudi Arabia before the closure of Jedda Airport.
The Board’s Executive Secretary, Alhaji Muhammad Abba-Dambatta, gave the assurance on Tuesday in Kano.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that 2,229 seats were allocated to the state and Azman Air was approved as the carrier of the pilgrims.
Abba-Dambatta said the delay was caused by efforts to change the carrier of the pilgrims.
“ The state government proposed Max Air as its carrier, but National Hajj Commission assigned Azman to transport them; all efforts to make NAHCON to change the carrier were unsuccessful,’’ he said.
According to him, already the board has informed Governor Ganduje on the situation and he assured of meeting the President for immidiate solutions.
He further said that the remaining Kaduna State pilgrims had already departed for Madina on Tuesday.
“We will move about 300 of our pilgrims to complete the number of passengers today,” he said.
“Two Flynas aircraft will come to Kano today, with 430 capacity each, on rescue mission to carry our pilgrims to Saudi Arabia, except those without visa,” Dambatta said.
Meanwhile, the General Manager, Azman Air, Alhaji Suleiman Lawal, said that National Hajj Commission allocated to it 14 state pilgrims and the Armed Forces as carriers.
“We have finished all the states allocated to us except Kano; it was because the state rejected us as their carrier, so we decided to go to other states.
“We only have 115 pilgrims from Kaduna State. They will be transported together with about 300 from Kano today.
He said “NAHCON will send other flights for rescue mission to Kano to ensure that all the intending pilgrims are transported before the deadline”.
Lawal said that Azman had aircraft with capacity to move 409 and 110 in the ongoing operations.(NAN)