The National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) had been accused by Umza Aviation Services Ltd of threatening the 2026 Hajj operation by arbitrarily slashing its pilgrims quota.
THE PETITION TO BPP
The airline revealed this in a letter dated 8 December 2025, signed by its Managing Director Anachund Henry Izu, and addressed to the Director General, Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP).
In the letter titled, “Re: Roll-Over of National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) Airlift 2025 Contract,” the airline said the Hajj commission had breached the 2026 Hajj rollover system approved by BPP, by reducing the number of its allocated pilgrims.
The letter reads, “The purpose of this letter is to inform the Bureau of Public Procurement of a potential breach by NAHCON that threatens the integrity of the approved rollover of the 2025
Hajj airlift contract, and to emphasise the importance of oversight in maintaining contractual trust.”
The airline said it was allocated 17,859 pilgrims from Adamawa, Nasarawa, Kaduna, Yobe and Niger States in the 2025 Hajj airlift contract.
It also claimed that it “performed creditably during the exercise.”
The company said that during the preparation for the 2026 Hajj bidding exercise, “we were informed
due to the time constraints occasioned by the rules of the GACA in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to conclude the 2026 hajj activities on time, that the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria has gotten the approval from the Bureau of Public Procurement to rollover the Hajj airlift contract of 2025 and award the same contract to the deserving airlines that already had the 2025 contract.”
The airline went further to state that,
“We understood the principles of contract rollover to mean maintaining the same contractual terms and quantities as in 2025, ensuring the sanctity of the original agreement was upheld in 2026.”
NAHCON CUTS OUR PILGRIMS TO 7,000
Umza Aviation, however said that, “But to our surprise, when the National Haii Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) Concluded the roll-over procurcment for the 2026, the number of Pilgrims we were awarded was reducod from about 17.859 pilgrims as we were awarded in 2025 to
about 7,000 pilgrims in 2026.
“Since we mobilised resources based on the initial award of 17,859 pilgrims, the sudden reduction to about 7.000 pilgrims will cause us significant financial loss running into billions of Naira, which we hope the Bureau will help prevent.”
The airline urged “the BPP to direct
NAHCON to uphold the full principles of rollover of the 2025 contract and uphold the original 2025 contract terms and maintain the states awarded to the airlines in
2025 Hajj airlift.”
UMZA’S POOR PERFORMANCE IN 2025 HAJJ
Investigations by this newspaper after reviewing Umza Aviation’s petition and various reports of 2025 Hajj, interviews with states that operated under the airline, and some internal documents of NAHCON however shown that almost all the claims by Umza Aviation were self-centred, baseless and without empirical facts.
Contrary to its claims that it performed creditably during the 2025 Hajj, review of newspaper reports of the 2025 Hajj airlift revealed that the airline performed poorly, mostly abandoning its allocated pilgrims for days in embarkment camps, forcing some of them to protest.
On 21 May 2025 for instance, Niger state intending pilgrims staged a protest in Minna, the state capital, after Umza Aviation abandoned them for more than a week in the camp. The intending pilgrims who constituted the final batch under the state’s 7th flight, have been stranded at the camp facility for over a week, following repeated postponements of their departure dates by Umza Aviation.
Contrary to standard international travel protocols, the airline left them without any succor in terms of shelter, food, water, or drugs for more than one week.
“We have been here since last Tuesday (May 13, 2025) without proper care. We are stranded and nobody is telling us what is going on,” one pilgrim told Hajj Reporters.
It was not only Niger state that had problem with Umza Aviation during the 2025 operations, this newspaper has found out. Kaduna state pilgrims who were allocated to Umza Aviation were also subjected to delays for days, particularly during the return journey.
These delays have flawed the airline’s claims of performing credibility rating during the 2025 Hajj. The delays were attributed to the airline’s lack of capacity, inexperience and limited infrastructure.
NAHCON TO BLAME – EXPERTS
Experts have faulted the Hajj commission for allocating to the airline the largest share of pilgrims in 2025 even though it was a new entrant in the operation and the least in terms of material capacity, infrastructure and experience.
Despite the presence of bigger and more experienced local airlines like Max Air and Air Peace, the Hajj commission unduly allocated 17,859 pilgrims to the airline which was above its capacity as a new entrant, one of the top officials in NAHCON told this newspaper.
Insiders said the airline’s accusation of NAHCON over “roll-over agreement” is faulty. They said the roll-over granted was strictly to the number of airlines that participated in 2025 Hajj, it doesn’t include details such as the number of pilgrims allocated to each airline.
The Hajj commission official who faulted the “roll-over” policy said, it breeds incompetence and zero value for money. “For instance, with its woeful performance in 2025, how could Umza Aviation scales the screening hurdles this year if not for the ‘roll-over” policy?”
UMZA SHOULD BE SANCTIONED
The top official said, “I am still appalled why Umza Aviation was not sanctioned and fined for delivering poor services to the pilgrims? If you allow states to choose their airlines directly, I bet you that nobody can choose Umza Aviation. But it still has the audacity to write a petition.”
The source said it is laughable for Umza Aviation to dream of getting 17,859 pilgrims it undeservedly got last year, simply because the number of total number of pilgrims this year is not the same with last year’s.
“The total allocation for 2026 is 50,000 compared to last year’s 95,000. Their arithmetic doesn’t add up at all,” the official who spoke without official authorization told this newspaper.
This newspaper observed that this is the first time an airline is petitioning NAHCON before Hajj operation over pilgrims allocation.
Another official who spoke on the matter said, Umza Aviation was allocated the lion’s share “because of personal interest by the leadership of the Hajj commission at the detriment of other experienced and bigger airlines.”
This development drew the ire of Saudi Arabia’s GACA which threatened not to issue Umza Airline permits to land in any airport in the kingdom. It cited the case of allocating 12,250 pilgrims to Flynas— a Saudi airline operating in Nigeria under BASA agreement — while allocating Umza Airline— a new entrant 17,859 pilgrims.
This newspaper reports how it took backend diplomatic channels to resolve the problem which almost threatened the 2025 Hajj inaugural flight in Owerri, Imo state.
ROLL-OVER IS AN INDICTMENT ON NAHCON
Stakeholders who spoke to our reporters over the issue blamed the Hajj commission leadership under Professor Abdullahi Saleh Usman Pakistan for the development.
They said “Saudi Arabia released the 2026 Hajj calendar immediately after 2025 Hajj in June. So, NAHCON had enough time to go through all the processes of airlines screening “if it was not carried away by in-house fighting, estacode-induced travels, alleged corrupt practices over who gets what from service providers, and so on.”
“Therefore, the idea of roll-over itself is an indictment of the incumbent leadership of the Hajj commission. We shouldn’t be talking about this if the leaderhip had remained focused on operational activates and stayed back and do work instead of globetrotting,” one of the stakeholders said.
“It is clear that Umza Aviation has been emboldened by the unnecessary corruption-induced favour it got from the commission,” one of the stakeholders with over 30 years experience in Hajj operations said.
Others said the Umza Aviation petition is “coming because of the apparent leadership and administrative incapacity inherent in Professor Pakistan.”
UMZA AVIATION MUM
Attempts to obtain reactions from Umza Aviation officials were not possible on Wednesday. When our reporter called the official telephone number of the airline and explained to him that he wanted reactions for this story, the Umza Aviation official agreed but said that he would call back after Isha’ (night) prayers. However, the official refused to answer the telephone after repeated calls.
NAHCON NOT OBLIGATED TO REPEAT SLOTS, STATES — SPOX
When contacted, the Technical Assistant (Media) to NAHCON chairman, Ahmad Mu’azu told this newspaper on Wednesday that the claims by Umza Aviation were not true.
He said the Hajj commission never requested BPP for “rollover of airlines.” He said what NAHCON requested was “Re-engagement of the 2025 Hajj air carriers and cargo companies.”
“NAHCON had to do that due to the strict timeline given by Saudi Arabia,” he said. He said that was done in accordance with section 43 of the Public Procurement Act 2007.
Mr Mu’azu said the only waiver the commission requested was that of the procedures for advertisement and other protocol that would take up to three months.
However, the commission is not obligated to repeat the states and number of pilgrims allocated to the airlines.
“For instance, many states had complained about the services rendered by some of the airlines. Umza Aviation airlifted Kaduna, Nasarawa, Niger, Adamawa and Yobe in 2025 Hajj. But we changed some of these states due to complaints. Umza was allocated Bauchi, Plateau, Sokoto and Zamfara for 2026 Hajj,” he said.
He said the total number of pilgrims determine the allocation. He said Umza was allocated 17,585 in 2025, but only airlifted 10, 334.
“Therefore, the claim of rollover is not true. That is why NAHCON asked the airlines to submit their updated documents for screening. This is because the 2025 Hajj airlift agreement has expired after the Hajj operation. So, NAHCON is not obligated to repeat states or slots for the airlines. This is not even possible because of the total number of pilgrims,” Mr Mu’azu said.
