Nigeria has appealed to the Saudi authorities to increase it’s pilgrims quota.
Nigeria’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Alhaji Yahaya Lawal made the appeal on Thursday, at the meeting of Organization Of Islamic Countries, OIC, in Jeddah.
Ambassador said the current quota was inadequate as there are increased demand from Nigerians wishing to undertake the annual religious exercise.
He equally called on the Saudi authorities to include Nigeria in the Makkah Route Initiative, which at present has seven countries as beneficiaries.
The Initiative is a Saudi Arabian program designed to streamline the immigration process for pilgrims to Makkah. The initiative was launched in 2019 by the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah (Saudi Arabia) and it currently embraces Turkey, Ivory Coast, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Morocco and Bangladesh.
Alhaji Yahaya said Nigeria is one of the countries with the largest number of pilgrims that participate in Umrah and Hajj exercises in the Kingdom, year-in, year-out.
The 2023 Hajj quotas for some countries, including Nigeria are:
• Algeria – 41,300
• Bangladesh – 127,198
• India – 175,025
• Indonesia – 221,000
• Iran – 87,550
• Kyrgyzstan – 6,000
• Malaysia – 31,600
• Nigeria – 95,000
• Oman – 14,000
• Pakistan – 179,210
• Russia – 25,000
• Senegal – 12,800
• Singapore – 900
• South Africa – 2,500
• Sudan – 32,000
• Syria – 22,500
• Tunisia – 10,982
The envoy further reiterated his earlier advice to Nigerian pilgrims to be good ambassadors of their country and the religion of Islam
by being law abiding and respecting laid down rules and regulations for ease of interaction.
He enjoined pilgrims to make maximum use of their Allah’s given opportunity to maximize their temporal and spiritual benefits of the pilgrimage.
Alhaji Yahaya Lawal also called on the pilgrims to diligently utilise facilities put in place to ensure their comfort, wellbeing and ease of performing the Hajj rites and other religious activities.
