By Abdiqani Haji Abdi

Mecca- The old man did not move. As the black SUV carrying Somalia’s Minister of Religious Affairs rolled slowly through the crowded street near the Somali pilgrims’ accommodation in Saudi Arabia, the elderly pilgrim stepped directly into its path and planted himself in front of the vehicle.

Around him, angry voices rose in unison.  
“We are suffering!”
“We have no transport!”
“We are hungry!”

The minister’s convoy stopped abruptly. Dozens of exhausted Somali pilgrims — many still wrapped in white ihram garments beneath the brutal Arabian heat — surged toward the vehicle. Some banged on the windows. Others shouted through tears. A few simply stood silently, drained by days of frustration, exhaustion, and disbelief.

What unfolded this week in Saudi Arabia was more than a protest over poor accommodation and failed logistics. It became a haunting portrait of Somalia itself — a country where even one of Islam’s holiest obligations has become entangled in accusations of corruption, neglect, and political decay.

And at the center of the storm stood Somalia’s controversial Minister of Religious Affairs, Mukhtar Robow Ali — a former senior Al-Shabaab commander whose transformation from insurgent leader to government minister remains one of the most extraordinary and divisive political stories in modern Somali history.

“We Paid Thousands to Suffer”

The videos spread across Somali social media with lightning speed. In one clip, an elderly woman struggles to explain how far pilgrims had been placed from the Haram. In another, angry men accuse organizers of abandoning them without buses, food, or medical assistance.

One exhausted pilgrim, sweat running down his face, spoke with visible disbelief. “We paid nearly five thousand dollars,” he said. “And look at how we are living.” For many Somalis, the number itself was shocking.

Somali pilgrims reportedly paid some of the highest Hajj fees in East Africa — in some cases close to $5,000 per person — despite Somalia being one of the poorest countries in the world. Families sold livestock. Others borrowed money from relatives abroad. Some spent years saving for the sacred journey to Mecca.

Yet many say they arrived only to find overcrowded rooms, poor food, inadequate healthcare, and accommodation so far from the holy sites that elderly pilgrims were forced to walk for hours under punishing temperatures.

“We have no buses,” another pilgrim shouted in a now-viral video. “The Haram is extremely far. People are getting sick.” The comparisons with neighboring countries only deepened the humiliation. “Ethiopian pilgrims arrived with organized transport, food, medical care,” one Somali protester said bitterly. “Why are Somalis treated like abandoned people?”

From Insurgent Commander to Minister of Religion

The man forced to step out of the SUV and confront the crowd is no ordinary politician. Before entering government, Mukhtar Robow Ali was one of the most feared figures inside Al-Shabaab. Known by the nom de guerre “Abu Mansur,” he helped shape the movement during some of the darkest years of Somalia’s insurgency.

For years, he stood near the top of the group’s hierarchy — a powerful ideologue and military figure accused by critics of helping oversee a brutal campaign of violence across southern Somalia.Then came the dramatic reversal.

After defecting from Al-Shabaab, Robow eventually entered politics. Former President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo placed him under house arrest amid political tensions in South West State. But when President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud returned to power, Robow was released and later appointed Minister of Religious Affairs.

The appointment stunned many Somalis. To supporters, it symbolized reconciliation and reintegration. To critics, it represented the normalization of impunity and the collapse of moral standards inside government institutions. Now, amid the Hajj scandal, those old controversies have resurfaced with renewed force.

A Sacred Journey, A National Scandal

The scenes unfolding in Saudi Arabia have triggered outrage far beyond the pilgrims themselves. Across Mogadishu, Hargeisa, Bosaso, Nairobi, Minneapolis, London, and Toronto, Somalis watched the videos with a mix of anger and embarrassment.

“This is no longer incompetence,” one Somali commentator wrote online. “This is exploitation of people performing worship.” The Ministry of Religious Affairs now faces mounting accusations that Hajj operations have become commercialized and riddled with corruption.

Critics claim politically connected individuals profit enormously from pilgrimage contracts while ordinary pilgrims endure degrading conditions. No independent investigation has yet verified all the allegations. But in Somalia, public trust in institutions has eroded so deeply that many citizens no longer assume dysfunction is accidental. Instead, they increasingly see it as systemic.

The Shadow of a Larger Collapse

The Hajj controversy arrives at a moment when Somalia itself appears politically exhausted.

The Federal Government is facing mounting pressure over allegations of corruption, constitutional disputes, political fragmentation, and worsening insecurity. Relations between Mogadishu and key Federal Member States remain fractured. Al-Shabaab continues launching deadly attacks and reclaiming territory in parts of the country.

Against that backdrop, the images from Saudi Arabia struck a deeper emotional nerve. For many Somalis, the suffering of the pilgrims became symbolic of a state failing its citizens at every level — from security and governance to humanitarian services and religious affairs.

“Even in the House of Allah, Somalis cannot escape corruption,” one frustrated observer wrote on Facebook. That sentiment is spreading rapidly. The anger is not only about failed logistics. It is about dignity.

Somalis watched elderly pilgrims — people who spent lifetimes dreaming of visiting Mecca — standing helpless under the desert sun without transport, healthcare, or basic care after paying enormous sums of money. And they saw a government minister forced to step out of his vehicle to face the fury of citizens who no longer trust the institutions meant to protect them.

Silence, Then Promises

After the confrontation, Minister Mukhtar Robow Ali reportedly promised that the situation would be addressed urgently. But for many pilgrims, the assurances came too late.

By then, the videos had already escaped into the digital world — raw, emotional, impossible to contain. The Ministry has yet to provide a detailed public explanation addressing the financial management of this year’s Hajj operations or the specific failures that led to the crisis.

That silence has only intensified suspicion. In Somalia, where corruption scandals have become almost routine, many citizens now see the Hajj debacle not as an isolated disaster, but as another chapter in a much larger story: the slow erosion of public accountability in a fragile state struggling to hold itself together.

And perhaps that is why the image of the old man standing in front of the minister’s car resonated so powerfully. For a brief moment in the streets of Saudi Arabia, exhausted Somali pilgrims stopped being silent passengers in a broken system. They stood in the road and refused to move.

Abdiqani Haji Abdi
Email: Hajiabdi0128@gmail.com