A promise of hope has risen for Nigerians who yearn passionately to fulfill their dreams of visiting the Holy land of Jerusalem to perform the pilgrimage, but who could not due to high cost as the Nigerian Christian Pilgrims Commission ( NCPC) is working round the clock to achieve cheaper pilgrimage.
The Executive Secretary, NCPC, Mr John Kennedy Opara made this known during an exclusive interview with Tribune Tourism Magazine in Israel.
“With the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the support of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, very soon intending pilgrims will not have to pay through their noses for the realization of their spiritual dream of visiting Jerusalem.”
“With the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the support of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, very soon intending pilgrims will not have to pay through their noses for the realization of their spiritual dream of visiting Jerusalem.”
Mr Opara who was responding to a question bordering the cost of performing the pilgrimage seems to be scaring away a section of the society who would have loved to fulfill their dream said: “We have realised the import of pilgrimage in boosting not only the spiritual status of a pilgrims, but in vision shaping and behavioural pattern . We also realised that many people could not perform the pilgrimage due to the cost and these are people who are genuinely seeking the face of God. We have been working round the clock and looking into areas where the cost can be drastically cut down and I can assure you that very soon, the cost of embarking on pilgrimage will come down.”
He revealed “the high cost is not our own making . It is due to several reasons which we are battling to overcome as a commission. One of which is the fact that, there is no direct flight from Nigeria to Israel. Flying to Israel entails having a stop - over in either Turkey or Egypt which takes about nine hours combined and which ordinarily should be five hours with the attendant cost on tickets , man hour and impact on health . This is because there has been no Bilateral Air Service Agreement (BASA) between Nigeria and Israel. And luckily, the President, Dr Jonathan is working on this and has even written the State of Israel for a visit to personally assess and feel the situation.
And as soon as the BASA is achieved and our local airlines too, Arik, Aero and other frontliners in the aviation business will be able to fly Israel direct without incurring any additional cost on stop – over . This will go a long way in reducing the cost of ticket and reduce tension of the extra four hours.”
Mr Opara also disclosed: “We are not limiting our price cut solution on the ticketing and flight hour . Thank God, Mr President has approved that we should embark on bidders’ education for ground handlers in Israel too. Those are the local tour operators. We are going to engage them in contractual aggregate bidding where we hope to get the best deal at a very good cost .In the hospitality and group packaging business , the operators enjoy some privileges and discounts which are transferable to clients . This is what we are going to access and to make sure that we scale down the cost and make it affordable for the majority of those who desire to perform pilgrimage. Our price monitoring unit is working tirelessly on this areas and we are hoping that if God helps us to get it done on time, people can be paying like a thousand and two hundred dollars to go to Israel.”
He said: “My dream is to have more than 100,000 Nigerians to go to Israel yearly. This is because our feedback system obtained from sponsors on those who have gone to Israel revealed that an impressive percentage of Jerusalem pilgrims have their lives touched positively by their spiritual encounter and experience in Israel. This also impacted greatly on their behavioural patterns as they continue to strive hard to work against those antics which could portray a JP in a bad light. If we can have a sequential increase and improvement on this, particularly with over 100,000 Nigerians yearly and every one of them able to affect 20 lives, the multiple effect will be much. That will be that millions of people would be transformed and we will live in peace and harmony as there will be drastic reduction in cases of corruption, greed, chaos and if we are able to achieve this, then our house will be in order and we will live as one big family.”
