Two Nigerian pilgrims delivered new babies while perfuming
this year’s pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.
Sadly, however, 14 Nigerians were reported dead during the
just concluded hajj in the holy land.
The female pilgrims are from Sokoto and Kogi states. The
dead included a member of staff and legal adviser to the National
Hajj Commission ( NAHCON), identified as Ahmed Idris, who travelled
alongside his wife but eventually died after a brief illness shortly after
performing all the hajj rites.
Head of the team in charge of health matters in the
commission, Dr. Ibrahim Kana, made this known during a stakeholders’ meeting in
Mecca at the 2017 hajj post Arafat meeting with stakeholders.
According to him,
members of the medical committee would visit all hospitals in Saudi Arabia and
take care of all Nigerian patients on admission, while all unidentified and
missing pilgrims would also be ascertained.
Kana projected and cautioned that within the
next 10 years, Nigerians would operate hajj during a dry season and hot
weather, hence the need for unhealthy persons or the aged to avoid
performing the pilgrimage, except if it is expedient. Such pilgrims, he
advised, should be accompanied by able-bodied persons from home.
He added that the commission would adopt a system where the
operations of all a
By Kehinde Aderemi
