Bauchi completes airlift of pilgrims, bars 10 pregnant women from exercise

Despite the fear and anxiety expressed by a large chunk of the intending pilgrims from Bauchi State over their inability to be airlifted to Saudi Arabia for this year’s Hajj exercise, the last batch of 180 intending pilgrims were on Sunday airlifted to the Holy Land from the Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa International Airport in Bauchi.

It could be recalled that fear had gripped the 2,201 intending pilgrims who were yet to be airlifted as of last Monday, expressing fear that they might miss the spiritual exercise as they were yet to leave the shores of the country few days to the closure of the Saudi airports to flights.

The last flight conveying the pilgrims from Bauchi, however, departed the airport at about 2:20p.m Sunday with 180 pilgrims from Bauchi State, 13 from Gombe State, as well as 26 National Hajj Commission (NAHCO) officials and some Hajj officials from Adamawa and Taraba State.

Also in the last batch are the Speaker, Bauchi State House of Assembly, who doubles as the state Amirul Hajj, Hon Kawuwa Shehu and some members of the state Amirul Hajj Committee.

Daily times correspondent reliably gathered that the flight was facilitated by the Emir of Bauchi, Alhaji Rilwanu Suleiman Adamu, who is the National Amirul Hajj for this year Hajj exercise.

Meanwhile, as of the time the last flight was taking off, two pregnant women were detected by officials of the Bauchi State Pilgrims Welfare Board, with one of them carrying a seven-month pregnancy, while the other one was six months pregnant.

This brought to a total of 10 pregnant women from the state discovered during the airlift operation.
The two detected yesterday, like the previous eight, were promptly barred from embarking on the spiritual journey to Saudi Arabia to perform Hajj, which is the fifth pillar of the religion of Islam.

In a related development, the state Amirul Hajj, Hon Shehu, has expressed satisfaction with the successful completion of the airlift operation from Bauchi, despite the challenges faced during the operation.

According to him, “With this last flight about to take off now, all intending pilgrims from the state have been airlifted to the Holy Land,” adding that everyone involved in the operation worked hard to achieve this.

He, therefore, expressed appreciation to officials of the state pilgrim board, members of the Amirul Hajj committee as well as journalists for a job well done.

He informed that the pilgrims from the state already in Saudi Arabia were being conveyed to Mecca for the Hajj rites, which formally begin on Wednesday, adding that the last batch would fly to Jeddah instead of Medina where the previous flights flew to directly from Bauchi.