THE National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) has wasted at least N8 billion on 6,200 “contingency bed spaces” for non-existent pilgrims in Makkah during the 2025 Hajj.
This revelation comes at a time when the commission is facing threats of international litigation from Saudi catering and accommodation companies over N12.9 billion in debts.
This scandal was uncovered by a team of investigative journalists who are currently reviewing dozens of officials documents that include contractual agreements, transactional receipts, payment vouchers, as well as audio, videos, recorded voices and interviews with many officials familiar with what transpired during the 2025 Hajj operation.
The 6,200 bed spaces are enough to accommodate the 5,750 pilgrims from the 17 Southern states of Nigeria, it was revealed. Analysis of 2025 Hajj pilgrims figures have shown that 333 pilgrims had performed Hajj from the South-South, 367 from the South-East, and 5,050 from the South-West.
It’s well known that state pilgrim agencies and licensed tour operators are responsible for securing pilgrims’ accommodation in Makkah under the “delegated authority” clause in the NAHCON Act.
The commission delegated this responsibility to the states pursuant to Section 19, subsections 1 and 2, of the NAHCON (Establishment) Act 2006.
This year, it was unclear why NAHCON deviated from its mandate and paid for accommodations for 6,200 non-existent pilgrims in Makkah, even after states had secured and tour operators had paid for accommodations for their actual pilgrims.
It was puzzling why NAHCON, a regulatory Hajj agency that statutorily owns no pilgrims aside from its officials and some ad-hoc staff, would pay for 6,200 bed spaces in Makkah.
The NAHCON’s involvement in securing unneeded pilgrims accommodation in Makkah has made a nonsense of the commission’s licensing process and conflicted with its supervisory role as stipulated in Section 4, Subsection 1 (a) of the NAHCON Act.
This is aside from the fact that the securing of the 6,200 bed spaces in Makkah violated the commission’s procurement process of indication of interest by a company, pre-qualification by NAHCON, inspection and evaluation of houses by NAHCON staff and payment for the houses.
The 6,200 bed spaces procured for the non-existent pilgrims is nearly three times the total number of federal officials the commission said it had sponsored to the 2025 Hajj.
There are discrepancies in the number of officials NAHCON said it had sponsored to the 2025 Hajj. For instance, a report by the NAHCON Tent Coordination Committee for 2025 Hajj said a total of 2,574 officials under various categories were sponsored. But this was contradicted by the official NAHCON 2025 flights manifest for this year’s Hajj.
The flights manifest indicated only 2,039 officials were brought to 2025 Hajj— further deepening allegations that the commission might have padded the official list by at least 500 to pocket the money.
Statutorily, NAHCON only secures hotel accommodations for Nigerian pilgrims in Madinah, where they are now forced to spend a maximum of four days. In the past, pilgrims spent a minimum of eight days in Madinah.
Nigeria began airlifting 100 percent of its 95,000 pilgrims directly to Madinah during the administration of Barr. Abdullahi Mukhtar Muhammad, where they spent eight full days (to perform 40 daily compulsory prayers) with excellent accommodation and feeding.
The number of days in Madinah was slashed to four days during the tenure of Zikirullah Kunle Hassan at a higher cost than when they spent eight days. This unpopular practice continued under Mr Ahmad Jalal Arabi and Professor Abdullahi Saleh Usman despite serial complaints by stakeholders and pilgrims.
Nigerian pilgrims stay in Saudi Arabia for an average of 40 days during the Hajj.
Findings by our reporters show that none of the 6,200 “contingency” bed spaces were ever used throughout the 2025 Hajj operation, even though the accommodation agents were paid up front by the commission.
Further details of the deal revealed that NAHCON secured the accommodation from some companies that were never pre-qualified by the commission as stipulated in its procurement laws.
Some of the companies are Asmanan Hijaz — promoted by one Rukayya and Khadija; Rawaf Golden – promoted by Mustapha; and Amjad Salam— promoted by a rogue agent that was blacklisted by the commission in the past.
These companies were not part of the 13 accommodation providers that applied, screened, pre-qualified and licensed by the Hajj commission in consonance with Section 4 (1) (a) (ii) and (iii) before the Hajj.
The companies rented out 10 houses to the commission with a total bed capacity of 6,200 at 3,000 Saudi riyal each. This translates to 18.6 million Saudi riyal, 4.9 million U.S dollar, and N7.9 billion.
These houses were never evaluated or approved by the commission before they were taken, in clear violation of NAHCON’s extant procurement regulations.
This newspaper reliably gathered that not all NAHCON officials are even entitled to accommodation in Makkah during Hajj to warrant such huge wastage of public funds.
However, not all of these 2,574 officials (as per Tent Committee report), are entitled to official accommodation in Makkah. Of this number — considered over-bloated and the largest in the commission’s 19 years’ history — only about 1,398 are officially entitled to accommodation in Makkah, this newspaper learned.
The Stakeholders (1,000), Media (50), and Ulama (348) are the only categories that are officially entitled to accommodation in Makkah.
Other committees like medical (385), security (20), and aviation (9) are provided with residence at the apartments secured for use as clinics in Makkah. All the remaining ones that include staff (306), spouses (422), CEO and Board Members (19) are not entitled to any official accommodation because it was covered by their estacode.
It was revealed also that more than 70% of the Stakeholders slots were allegedly sold at N7 to N7.5 million per slot; while 50% of the names in media committee were not media practitioners.
Also, a significant number in the Ulama team were not clerics; and even the clerics among them are mostly from a particular Muslim sect and one region of the country.
As if the commission knew nobody would use the contingency accommodation, the 6,200 bed spaces were secured in hotels along Madina Road, a location outside the traditional Nigerian pilgrims’ area.
Findings have shown that the 10 houses were abandoned for years until recently, when they were partially used as makeshift accommodation by some “construction workers.”
On the debts owed Saudi caterers and accommodation providers, it was gathered that the commission is still owing a dozen companies a total of about 30 million Saudi riyal (N12.9 billion), even though state pilgrims agencies have fully paid for the Makkah and feeding accommodation long before Hajj.
The Makkah companies, insiders from NAHCON said, are under “tremendous pressure from Makkah landlords over the delayed payment. Majority of them are afraid because the landlords are threatening to drag them to courts over the debts.”
It was learned that NAHCON chairman Usman had returned to Nigeria on July 9, leaving a Deputy Director of Accounts, Mr Na’Allah behind. This is even though Mr Na’Allah is not an approving officer; he is only a signature B to the commission’s accounts.
As the Service Providers besiege the NAHCON Office in Makkah, threatening legal actions, the commission chairman is said to be mulling plans to use the fund in IBAN to pay off the debts.
It was found out that some of the companies were paid 50 percent, but some were not, even though the companies that provided the 6,200 bed spaces were paid in full, up front.
“The NAHCON accounts are in red. There is no money to pay anybody. That is the biggest dilemma facing the commission now,” one of the staff members of the commission said.
“It is appalling how the NAHCON chairman paid up front those 6,200 bed spaces that were never used, but refused to pay those who fed and housed the pilgrims,” another official said.
The staff members said state pilgrims’ boards have paid for the Makkah accommodations (3,000 Saudi riyal per pilgrim) and feeding (1,207 Saudi riyal per pilgrim) to NAHCON before Hajj.
“The Saudi policy is that you must pay for Makkah accommodation and feeding, among others, before a Hajj visa is granted. By this, where is the money paid for these services paid by the states before Hajj?,” a top official who spoke in confidence rhetorically asked.
Some staff who have called on the EFCC to investigate this scandal and bring all NAHCON officials involved to face justice. EFCC must probe the methods of engaging the houses, the actual value of the houses, how they were paid up front, the fronts used in securing the houses, refusal to pay service providers whose houses were used, among others.
The staff members have pointed accusing fingers at the NAHCON chairman Abdullahi Usman, Commissioner of Finance Aliu AbdulRazak, Secretary to the Commission Mustapha Muhammad Ali, and DD Accounts/SA Special General Duties to C/CEO Abdulmalik Diggi, to mention a few.
Insiders who spoke to this newspaper expressed worry that in the last two years of President Bola Tinubu alone the commission had caused the federal government to waste nearly N150 billion on Hajj alone.
They said under Mr Zikirullah, the federal government, in the early days of President Tinubu’s administration, had to caugh out N25 billion as payment to airlines even though all pilgrims have paid their return tickets.
Under Mr Arabi, the president had to pay N90 billion Hajj subsidy that led to a huge corruption scandal, while under Professor Usman leadership, the commission has so far lost public funds amounting to N34.5 billion alone.
These funds include the N25 billion wasted on Masha’ir tents, N1.6 billion on spouses, and now N7.9 billion on Makkah accommodation for non-existent pilgrims.
These and many other forthcoming revelations were corroborated by some of the reports filed by aides in the office of the Vice President who monitored the 2025 Hajj, and exclusively sighted by this newspaper.
The VP’s aides were particularly irked by Professor Usman’s continuous exclusion of the commission’s board and other stakeholders from the decision -making process despite Mr Shettima’s earlier warning to him to stop operating like a sole administrator.