Saudis Must Apologise!

The Saudis' inefficient management of the Hajj could not have been better exposed than during the just ended ill-fated religious exercise.

The varying figures between the Saudis, over 700 dead and what credible eyewitnesses have put forth, over 1,000 at one hospital alone during the Jamarat Bridge carnage, is adequate evidence about the level of inadequacies in the management of Hajj.

Five Ghanaians are still missing and the inefficient Saudi system has no way of determining their whereabouts- dead or alive.

The Jamarat Bridge carnage came on the heels of an earlier one in which many pilgrims lost their lives when a giant crane collapsed. We wonder why the pending arrival of millions of pilgrims from all over the world was not adequate warning for the Saudis to dismantle the gadget which menacingly overlooked the great mosque.

We have come a long way from the days when everything is given to God, the Ghanaian fashion, no interrogations. We cannot just 'give everything to God' as Saudi inefficiencies kill pilgrims.

For an oil-rich country, which is one of the leading exporters of the natural resource, there is no shortage of cash to ensure a carnage-free Hajj. The country also derives so much revenue from the annual pilgrimage.

Saudi, a closed country whose women are still denied the freedom to even drive, is not used to being criticized. Unfortunately for them the myth surrounding them has been broken by this heartbreaking act of men not a force majeure as some would want to force it down our throats.

The truth is that the presence of the King and high-ranking royals in the neighbourhood had the security details confused over what better measures to apply in ensuring uninhibited access for their bosses. In the event they messed up everything, and their befuddled state afflicting the pilgrims who collided with each other in the event. Painful death was the result under a scorching sun.

Rather than apologise we have had to contend with the xenophobic blaming of African pilgrims for the carnage by the Saudi Prince.

We condemn this nonsense from the Saudis and demand an unqualified apology from them. The days when they owned slaves from our part of the world are over and they must consider us with the respect that we deserve as human beings on equal footing with them.

The holy places located in their land are not their possessions. They are only custodians of these places and relics for the worldwide fraternity of Muslims.

Let them employ crowd management experts from outside their country to take over some of the tasks they have badly handled over the years.

The records of stampedes and the resultant mortalities are documented, and indeed when these are interrogated it would be easy to attribute them all to inefficiencies on the part of the Saudi authorities.

Justifiably infuriated stakeholders have even asked that the Saudis allow for the participation in the management of the Hajj by others outside their borders.