NAHCON, Shettima, nepotism and the marginalisation of other Muslims.
By Bamidele Ayouba, PhD
The handling of Nigeria’s 2025 Hajj operations preparations by the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) under the leadership of Professor Abdullahi Usman and his biological brother Surajo Saleh Usman has become nothing short of a national disgrace. Evidence points to shameless nepotism and staggering incompetence at the highest levels of the commission. Imagine deploying your blood brother to do the administrative work that you are responsible for, treating your files, acting as the chairman/CEO while you are just parading yourself in charge. After reading some reports on the issues in NAHCON, I decided to investigate, and what I found seems to be utterly disturbing. NAHCON’s leadership has betrayed the public trust on an industrial scale. Worse still, these abuses have occurred under the watchful eye and some say patronage of Vice President Kashim Shettima, who oversees the commission’s affairs.
NAHCON’s corruption is matched only by its stunning incompetence, which has directly inflicted pain and suffering on pilgrims. The commission’s top officials have proven unable or unwilling to competently manage Hajj logistics, contracts, and basic services and to live up to responsibility with integrity, resulting in chaos that tarnishes Nigeria’s reputation. A glaring example occurred during the 2025 Hajj contract signing when attempts to revisit already finalised contracts nearly cost Nigerians their 2025 Hajj slots, averted only through the intervention of serious media outlets.
NAHCON’s leaders astonishingly kept rehiring the same inept firm. Only after relentless pressure did NAHCO finally drop this discredited contractor in 2025. But incredibly, even that positive step was almost sabotaged when Professor Abdullahi Saleh Usman tried frantically to cancel the freshly signed contract with a reputable Saudi service provider (Mashariq Al-Dhahabiah) that the states had selected, in an apparent bid to revert to yet another “briefcase” company of his liking. He was ready to drag Nigerian pilgrims back into hellish conditions. Such poor judgement at the top is simply unforgivable.
The human cost of this incompetence is enormous. Pilgrims have been left stranded in airports without food or information; others were forced to endure squalid accommodations in the Holy Land, their once-in-a-lifetime spiritual journey marred by avoidable suffering. “Bureaucratic bottlenecks and poor performance by NAHCON” were blamed for the pilgrims’ ordeal, leading prominent voices to appeal to President Tinubu to dissolve NAHCON’s board. When even ruling-party politicians demand an agency’s overhaul, you know the situation is dire.
Nepotism rears its head in NAHCON’s activities, with a lack of concern for due diligence and due process, self-serving individuals at the helm of the affairs of the commission who brazenly do whatever they want and deem themselves. The saga of Ithraa Al Khair raises suspicions that someone in NAHCON was benefiting from that company’s continued engagement despite its terrible record. Insiders hinted that without outside pressure, NAHCON’s boss was prepared to pick “another briefcase company” linked to his allies to continue the maltreatment of Nigerian pilgrims.
Even NAHCON’s composition raises questions. While the board is nominally drawn from all zones, the real power lies with those appointed to top executive roles, positions often influenced by ethnic considerations. The current chairman, Professor Abdullahi Usman, is a northern scholar appointed after intense lobbying. His predecessor, Jalal Arabi, was likewise from the north. Meanwhile, capable professionals from outside the patronage network are rarely considered.
This ethnic bias is particularly glaring in how Muslims from the southern and middle-belt regions of Nigeria are systematically marginalised within NAHCON. Despite Nigeria being a multi-ethnic and multi-regional nation with significant Muslim populations in the Southwest, Southeast, and South-South, the commission operates as if Islam in Nigeria is exclusively a northern affair. Qualified Muslim professionals from these regions are routinely overlooked for key positions, denied opportunities for career advancement, and excluded from decision-making processes that affect all Nigerian pilgrims. This not only undermines NAHCON’s mandate to serve all Nigerian Muslims but also reinforces dangerous regional divisions that threaten our national cohesion.
All of these ills have festered under Vice President Kashim Shettima, who has direct oversight of NAHCON. As Vice President, Shettima was instrumental in the appointment of the current NAHCON board in February 2024, even personally inaugurating them with fanfare. Did the Vice President vet these individuals at all, or was filling NAHCON seen as merely a political IOU to loyalists?
It is clear that Shettima’s kinsmen from Borno have overtaken the juicy positions:
1. Abba Jatau East, Board Member (Borno)
2. Ali Muhammad, Secretary (Borno)
3. Bukar Babagana, Director Admin (Borno)
4. Deputy Director Audit (Borno)
5. Deputy Director Procurement (Borno)
Is there no other talent from the northeast or even the entire north that can fill these functions? What about qualified Muslims from Lagos, Oyo, Ogun, Osun, or other southern states with significant Muslim populations in the commission or service pool? Or is it because the VP is from Borno that all this is happening? A senior staff confirmed that people from Borno and Kanuri backgrounds are given preference during operations because of their affiliations. How can we not expect incompetence with such practices?
The ethnic bias and nepotism plaguing NAHCON strike at the heart of good governance and national unity. Southern Muslim communities have long felt marginalised in Hajj affairs, perceiving with justification that NAHCON is dominated by northern interests. If appointments and contract awards are seen as the spoils of office to be shared among political loyalists from one region, the entire purpose of the commission “to efficiently and fairly facilitate Hajj for all Nigerian Muslims” is defeated.
NAHCON’s chairman announced that the vice president will personally lead the Nigerian delegation to the 2025 Hajj, ostensibly to “supervise the exercise.” But this move has drawn cynicism: why is the VP suddenly interested in micromanaging Hajj logistics on-site when his real job was to ensure competent people were in charge in the first place? The truth is, Shettima’s presence is more political theatre than genuine oversight. Leading the Hajj delegation is a prestigious role in Nigerian politics, historically used to burnish one’s image among Muslim constituents. Shettima no doubt relishes this opportunity to bolster his standing, but it rings hollow when the crises afflicting Hajj operations are largely self-inflicted by his circle.
The Nigerian public must send a clear message to Vice President Shettima: we see through the excuses and PR stunts. Until Shettima either cleans up or clears out those rogues in the commission, he too must be considered part of the problem.
I stand before you today not merely as an academic but as a Nigerian Muslim whose heart bleeds at the desecration of our holy obligation. Make no mistake, what is happening at NAHCON is not just administrative failure; it is the violation of a sacred trust, the exploitation of faith for filthy lucre, and the betrayal of tens of thousands who scrape together their life savings to fulfil a pillar of Islam.
Have we become so numb to corruption that we accept its tentacles reaching into even our most holy endeavours? Can we sleep at night knowing that elderly pilgrims, our parents, our uncles and aunties are abandoned in foreign airports, left to sleep on bare floors in Makkah, forced to go without meals in Mina, all because some official has pocketed the funds meant for their care?
The evidence I have laid before you demands not just your outrage but your action. I call upon President Tinubu to immediately dissolve this corrupt NAHCON board and remove Professor Abdullahi Usman from his position. The EFCC and ICPC must be given free rein to investigate without political interference, with no sacred cows, no matter how highly placed. Every embezzled naira must be recovered, every corrupt official prosecuted to the full extent of the law. No more defensive press statements or superficial assurances.
I call upon our religious leaders, our imams and scholars, to speak truth to power. Your silence makes you complicit! When thieves in high office steal from pilgrims, they steal not just money but dignity, not just resources but faith itself.
I call upon Muslim organisations across Nigeria to rise as one and demand representation for all regions. The South has Muslims too! The Middle Belt has Muslims too! NAHCON belongs to all Nigerian Muslims, not just a northern clique or a Borno cabal.
To Vice President Shettima: You cannot escape responsibility by performative piety in Saudi Arabia while presiding over this cesspool of corruption. Either clean house now, or history will remember you as the godfather who sacrificed pilgrims’ welfare at the altar of patronage politics.
And to my fellow citizens: Document every abuse, speak out at every forum, and flood social media with evidence of NAHCON’s failures. Our collective voice must become a tsunami that sweeps away this entrenched corruption.
The Hajj is our sacred duty, not a feeding trough for political appointees. The time for polite complaints has passed. The time for decisive action is now. For the sake of every pilgrim who has suffered, for the sake of Nigeria’s dignity on the world stage, for the sake of the very faith these officials claim to serve, we must reclaim NAHCON from the clutches of corruption and incompetence. The world is watching, Allah is watching, and we will not be silent anymore.
Bamidele Ayouba, PhD
bamidele@wvu.edu
