THE Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON), Professor Abdullahi Saleh Usman, popularly known as Pakistan, has defied the Vice President Kashim Shettima’s directives against engaging retired or external civil servants.
This occurred after the vice president, in February, directed the NAHCON boss to cancel the engagement of retired staff of the commission and external civil servants.
On March 22, 2025, Sahara Reporters reported that the Association of Senior Civil Servants warned that if these issues are not addressed urgently, they could undermine the morale of dedicated NAHCON staff and hinder the commission’s effectiveness in fulfilling its mandate.
The association stated this in a letter titled “Urgent concerns regarding the placement of pool officers and administrative lapses”, dated March 3, 2025. It was addressed to the NAHCON executive council and board members.
The workers also challenged the Hajj Commission chairman regarding “unjust placement of seconded officers over the commission workers,” among other infractions.
On April 17, 2025, Daily Nigerian reported how VP Shettima warned Professor Pakistan against rehiring former or external staff members.
Mr Shettima issued the warning in a letter titled “Re: Request for Special Waiver to Appoint 3 Retired Officers on Contract,” signed by the Deputy Chief of Staff to the President, Office of the Vice President, Sen. Ibrahim Hassan Hadejia.
The letter stated: “His Excellency the Vice President has expressed a strong objection to rehiring former staff of the commission on a contract basis or engaging external civil servants to the detriment of your staff that are assigned the roles and responsibilities they are employed to perform.”
The vice president said, “Doing so will engender redundancy and create unnecessary discord and rancour within NAHCON’s ranks.”
Mr Shettima directed that the NAHCON chairman should “reverse any such engagements and instruct your Human Resources unit to conduct a proper mandate and capability assessment of your workforce so you can reassign roles and responsibilities or build up capacities where necessary.”
Investigations by this newspaper, however, indicated that Mr Pakistan continues to retain retired civil servants at the commission in apparent violation of the vice president’s directive.
For instance, Abba Bulama Diwaribe, head of protocol, remains in the commission despite reaching retirement age in June 2024. “Mr Bulama didn’t retire last year, arguing that his retirement is June 2025. Yet, he remains in the office,” said an official familiar with the matter.
Insiders said Mr Bulama stays despite retirement by imitating another retired staff member, Mr Usman Mamza (Assistant Director Legal), who remained in NAHCON for three years after retiring from the Federal Ministry of Justice.
“Mr Mamza served in NAHCON for three years without any written contractual agreement. The only reason he was there was that he is an alleged school mate of the vice president. That is the line Bulama appears to be trying to follow,” another official said.
Staff members have urged the ICPC and EFCC to investigate Mamza and recover all salaries and allowances received during those three years. They also called on the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to debar Mr Mamza.
They also appealed to the anti-graft agencies to probe Bulama’s actual retirement date and recover all funds accrued to him after the retirement.
This newspaper understands there are at least 26 external civil servants currently working in NAHCON, holding strategic positions despite Mr Shettima’s directive.
Among them are Abdulmalik Diggi, a deputy director (accounts) and special adviser (general services) to the C/CEO, popularly known as ‘ka fi chairman,’ meaning ‘de facto chairman.’ Others include Sirajo Usman Salisu, deputy director (C/CEO); Abubakar Isa Mshellanga, deputy director (procurement); Muhammad Ahmad, deputy director (admin); Mohammed Lawal, deputy director (audit); Abdullahi Kabir, deputy director (admin); Ahmad Sabo, assistant director (accounts); and Nasiru Adamu, principal accountant.
Sources complained that the external staff are given preferential treatment by Professor Pakistan, to the detriment of the internal workforce.
For example, during the 2025 Hajj, 25 of the 26 external civil servants were sponsored to Hajj by the commission. Meanwhile, of the 262 original staff of NAHCON, 78 were left behind, further deepening divisions within the agency.
STAKEHOLDERS URGE SHETTIMA TO SANCTION NAHCON BOSS
Various stakeholders who spoke to this newspaper have urged the vice president “to urgently sanction Mr Pakistan for defying his directives.”
Among these stakeholders are some Board Members of NAHCON, who said the chairman’s attitude would breed chaos and bureaucratic disharmony in the agency.
“This is the first time in my adult life that a sitting vice president would issue a directive to a head of a federal agency only for the directive to be ignored without any consequences. This will set a bad precedent. This attitude is alien to the civil service we know,” a board member who declined being named said.
The board members also condemned the abandonment of 78 NAHCON staff members in Nigeria during the 2025 Hajj, while sponsoring all the external staff members. “This is pure injustice and crass misrule,” another board member said.
Other staff members said the “gross disregard of the vice president’s orders by the NAHCON chairman, if left unchecked, would go along way in depleting the remnants of institutional memory, technical expertise, growth in hierarchy in the commission.”
The stakeholders said most of the external staff members didn’t rise through the ranks, therefore they are not conversant with the inner workings of the commission. The attendant effect of this negative trend, they said, is the continuous erosion of institutional memory leading to the constant loss of money in the commission.
“Take for instance, it is gross inefficiency and naivety that led do the avoidable loss of N150 billion in the commission in the last two years under President Bola Tinubu’s administration alone.
“Under Mr Zikirullah Kunle Hassan, President Tinubu coughed out N25 billion as payment to airlines even though all pilgrims have paid for their return tickets. Under Mr Jalal Ahmad Arabi, the president had to pay another N90 billion Hajj subsidy that led to a huge corruption scandal, while Professor Pakistan’s leadership midwifed the loss of public funds amounting to N34.5 billion, comprising N25 billion wasted on Masha’ir tents, N1.6 billion on spouses, and N7.9 billion on Makkah contingency houses,” the insider said.
Many staff members contacted by this newspaper were unanimous that the external workers should leave to allow the commission functions optimally. “If those staff members who retired earlier didn’t leave, how could those who are bent in staying back after retirement rose in their careers? This will lead to stagnation,” they said.
Mr Pakistan’s alleged ethnicisation of the top echelon of the commission, other stakeholders said, “is embarrassing and portraying the vice president in bad light.”
“We all know that VP Shettima is not an ethnic or regional bigot as evidenced in the staffing of his office now, and when he was Borno State governor. But Mr Pakistan is rubbishing the VP’s hard earned principle by appointing major office holders from Borno state,” the insider said.
“In NAHCON today, the Secretary to the Commission is from Borno. The director (admin), head of protocol, deputy director (procurement), deputy director (audit) are all from Borno state. This is embarrassing to the VP, who is known for his cosmopolitanism, heterogeneity and inclusiveness,” a staff of the commission said.
The staff of the commission who requested anonymity for fear of victimization pointed accusing fingers at the director of admin, who is believed to have “brought two of his friends to the commission deputy director (audit) and deputy director (procurement).
