ABOUT 270 intending pilgrims from Kwara on Friday protested at llorin international Airport over the inability of an Air Peace aircraft to transport them to Saudi Arabia.
This newspaper reports that the pilgrims, officials of the State Pilgrims Welfare Board and the 2024 state Amirul Hajj had boarded the aircraft since Thursday.
The Air Peace aircraft was, however, said to have developed a technical fault.
It also reports that some engineers with the Federal Airport Authority had been making frantic efforts to repair the faulty aircraft since Thursday without success.
Air Peace would transport pilgrims from Abia, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Edo, Ekiti, Enugu, FCT, Imo, Kwara, Ondo and Rivers.
Consequently, some of the intending pilgrims staged a protest over the development.
The intending pilgrims, alongside their relations, took the protest to the highway linking the airport with other communities to express their displeasure over the situation.
According to reports, the pilgrims about 270 in number, blocked the Ilorin/Ogbomoso/Ibadan Expressway, in the Kwara State capital.
It was further learnt that the protest commenced around 4:00 pm on Friday evening.
Some of the protesters were seen singing solidarity songs condemning the situation, especially since they are the tenth and last batch from the state.
Sen. lbrahim Oloriegbe, the state’s 2024 Amirul Hajj, while speaking with NAN, attributed the failure to transport the last batch of the pilgrims to faulty aircraft.
Oloriegbe said the intending pilgrims had boarded the aircraft since Thursday but were unable to be transported following the development.
The Amirul hajj said that they are expecting another aircraft from Madinah to transport the intending pilgrims and the officials.
He appealed to them to exercise patience, as the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria was on top of the situation.
He said that the board would continue to cater for the feeding of the intending pilgrims pending when they would be transported to the holy land.