Nigerian pilgrims in Saudi Arabia have faulted a social media report on the kind of breakfast purportedly served to FCT pilgrims.
This comes on the heels of viral social media posts by a Sahara reporter on the kind of breakfast being served to the FCT pilgrims in Saudi Arabia after paying N8m as 2024 Hajj fare.
However, checks at the FCT hotel in Makkah, NAMA EL SRIYA HOTEL revealed that the report about under-feeding of the pilgrims was untrue as the pilgrims distance themselves from such purported reports which they described as the hand-work of social media influencers.
The pilgrims expressed doubt concerning the veracity of the story, insisting that the social media post was not from any pilgrim in the holy land.
One of the Pilgrims who spoke to Voice of Nigeria, Jibrin Madaki disclosed that “That person is just trying to be a mischief. I think he must have eaten more than half of that breakfast before he took the photo of the remnant and mischievously sent it to his friend who posted it on Facebook,”.
Yes, I know we paid a huge amount of money to embark on this spiritual trip and we expected to get good service but I want to remind us that we cannot know exactly what we are getting from our various houses, he added.
Another pilgrim from the FCT who is staying at their Hotel close to Bin Ladan Mosques, Mr Idris Jamilu, said: “That wasn’t the quantity of food shared with us for breakfast. If anybody should complain, it should be us (the pilgrims) and not someone in Nigeria. Look, nothing of such happened as has been speculated in the social media. They are just looking for trouble. I also want to plead with the media to always verify their source of information before going to print and not just lifting information from Facebook or any of the social platforms”.
Maryam Umar who frowned at such reports said, you know when you gather of this nature you must be ready to face and endure all forms of criticism. This issue started when we were in Nigeria when the Federal Government gave the subsidy of N90b for this year’s hajj exercise, there is a lot of discussion from different quotas challenging the rationale behind such a decision by the government. So we should be ready to see such a kind of publication because there is a vested interest in all quota from what is going on.
“Most of the time we have to discard the leftovers because there is nobody in Saudi Arabia to give it to. So how can somebody snap his leftovers and send the photo to share as a full breakfast ration?” Maryam explained further.
Hajiya Hadiza is the person in charge of feedings of the FCT Pilgrims Board in Saudi Arabia. She said she was surprised when her attention was drawn to the purported publication from Sahara reporter.
While assuring the Pilgrims that the Board has made adequate arrangement in terms of feedings for the pilgrims throughout their stay in Makkah, she enjoys them to always channel their complaints to board for redress where necessary.
She insisted that they are yet to receive such complaints from any of the FCT Pilgrims at the moment in the holy land.
