By Abdul-Ganiyy Akanbi,Abuja

A faith-based Civil Society Organisation, CSO, the Independent Hajj Reporters, IHR,, has called for clear-cut functions and terms of reference for the state’s Amirul Hajj teams and government delegations to ensure a streamlined Hajj operations.

The CSO, in a statement issued on Tuesday by its national coordinator Ibrahim Mohammed, said the call became necessary owing to past experiences in which some state Amirul Hajj teams, which were supposed to be ad-hoc committees formed to offer support to appointed officials and pilgrims, often assume powers and responsibilities beyond their scope, leading to chaos and negatively affects operations during the holy pilgrimage

,”While we acknowledge the responsibilities of governments in appointing Amirul Hajj Teams and Government delegations, we suggest that such appointments should come with an unambiguous role and responsibilities of the Amirul Hajj team especially in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where the Hajj rites are performed,” Muhammad stated.

According to him, “Amirul Hajj teams and government delegations are symbols of the government’s eye and as such assigning roles that will not obstruct the operational plans of the State’s Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Boards, SMPWBs and NAHCON (National Hajj Commission of Nigeria) becomes imperative. We acknowledged their fatherly roles and added value Amirul Haj team injects in Hajj operations but such are rare cases.”

“There has been an instance where Amirul Hajj or states appointed delegations hijacked the operational machinery from the States Pilgrims Board officials and tried to direct who did what and how it should be done.

“Hajj is a unique exercise, especially the operational aspect, which is guided by sets of rules and regulations as designed by the Saudi Ministry of Hajj and Umrah. NAHCON, as the apex hajj regulatory body, auto assumes the implementation plans because it is the only body legally recognised by the Saudi Ministry of Hajj.

“Therefore, allowing people who are not conversant with hajj policies to take control of the critical aspect of hajj operations is synonymous with activating factors for failure and confusion, the statement added.

“Unlike other countries, Nigerian version of Amirul Hajj and government delegations hardly participate in field operations like guiding pilgrims in Makkah or Mina, assisting the Taradudiyah committee in dispatching pilgrims either to Mashair or to airport, oversee the distribution of food to pilgrims in their various accommodation or even visiting pilgrims to inquire about their welfare. These are the critical part of the hajj that requires helping hands.

,”In the same vein, we urge States Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Boards to cooperate with the appointed Amirul Hajj and government delegations towards ensuring the welfare of Nigerian pilgrims, while in Saudi Arabia,” he stressed.

To fill the vacuum created by the exit  of late Pope Francis,Catholic cardinals from across the globe will meet on May 7 to start voting for a new pope, the Vatican announced Monday, a week after the death of Pope Francis.

The “Princes of the Church” under the age of 80 will meet in the Sistine Chapel to choose a new religious leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, reports AFP.

The date was decided at meeting of cardinals of all ages early today, two days after the funeral of Francis, who died on April 21 aged 88.

The Church’s 252 cardinals were called back to Rome after the Argentine’s death, although only 135 are eligible to vote in the conclave.

They hail from all corners of the globe and many of them do not know each other.
But they already had four meetings last week, known as “general congregations”, where they began to get better acquainted.
Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, 83, a former head of the Italian bishops’ conference, said there was a “beautiful, fraternal atmosphere.”

“Of course, there may be some difficulties because the voters have never been so numerous and
not everyone knows each other,” he told Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper.

The Vatican on Monday closed the Sistine Chapel, where voting will take place under Michelangelo’s 16th-century ceiling frescoes, to begin preparations.

So far there are few clues as to who cardinals might choose.
“I believe that if Francis has been the pope of surprises, this conclave will be too, as it is not at all predictable,” Spanish Cardinal Jose Cobo told El Pais in an interview published on Sunday.

Francis was laid to rest on Saturday with a funeral and burial ceremony that drew 400,000 people to St Peter’s Square and beyond, including royalty, world leaders and ordinary pilgrims.

Yesterday, about 70,000 mourners filed past his marble tomb in the Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica in Rome, after the “pope of the poor” opted to be buried outside the Vatican’s walls.

Bookmakers’ odds

With conflicts and diplomatic crises raging around the world, Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who under Francis was secretary of state — the pope’s number two — is for many the favourite to succeed him.
British bookmakers William Hill put him slightly ahead of Filipino Luis Antonio Tagle, the Metropolitan Archbishop emeritus of Manila, followed by Ghana’s Cardinal Peter Turkson.

Next in their odds come Matteo Zuppi, the Archbishop of Bologna, Guinea’s Cardinal Robert Sarah, and Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.

While Francis’s efforts to create a more compassionate Church earned him widespread affection and respect, some of his reforms angered the Church’s conservative wing, particularly in the United States and Africa.
Roberto Regoli, a professor of Church history and culture at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, told our correspondent that the cardinals would be looking “to find someone who knows how to forge greater unity.”

“We are in a period in which Catholicism is experiencing various polarisations, so I don’t imagine it will be a very, very quick conclave,” he said.

Bassetti, who is too old to participate, said however he thought it “will not be long.”
Some 80 percent of the cardinal electors were appointed by Francis — though that is no guarantee they will pick a successor in his likeness.

Most are relatively young, and for many it is their first conclave.

‘We need a courageous leader’
The vote is highly secretive and follows strict rules and ceremonial procedures. The process could take several days, or potentially longer.

There are four votes per day — two in the morning and two in the afternoon — until one candidate secures a two-thirds majority.

Fewer than half of those eligible to vote are European.

“The future pope must have a universal heart, love all the continents. We must not look at colour, at origin, but at what is proposed,” Cardinal Dieudonne Nzapalainga from the Central African Republic told the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero.

“We need a courageous leader, a bold one, capable of speaking forcefully, of holding the helm of the Church steady even in storms… offering stability in an era of great uncertainty.”

Patrizia Spotti, a 68-year-old Italian visiting Rome for the 2026 Jubilee holy year, told AFP Monday she hoped the new pontiff “will be a pope like Francis”.

It was a difficult time for Catholicism, she said.
“Churches are empty. And the Church itself has made mistakes, all the scandals with the children,” she said, referring to the widespread revelations of clerical sex abuse.

Panic and fear have gripped residents of Musukwani area in Jakara, Kano Municipal Local Government Area, following the mysterious disappearance of two young boys believed to have gone missing inside a large, deep ditch in the neighborhood