The kingdom of Saudi Arabia has started playing host to hordes of politicians, particularly those in government, who are in the country to perform the Lesser Hajj or the Umrah.

The Umrah is usually performed during the Ramadan, which is believed to be a time to seek spiritual blessings.

It was gathered, however, that most Nigerian politicians are performing this year’s Umrah in order to seek God’s favour for their political aspirations and not necessarily for religious purposes.

As of the time of filing this report, not less than 120 Senators and House of Representatives members had converged on Saudi Arabia, indeed, in Mecca for the Lesser Hajj for special supplications on the coming elections as reports indicated also that 77 lawmakers were processing their travelling documents to join their colleagues.

It has, however, been confirmed that not less than 50 lawmakers,  whose travelling papers had been fully processed,  would be landing in Saudi Arabia next week, as indications are rife that top officials of the House, who are muslims, including the Speaker, Dimeji Bankole, would be part of the train next week.

It was gathered that 20 more lawmakers are to join their colleagues in the upper week whereas the duration of time of stay by each will depend on individual reasons for making the trip, according to findings.

Legislators were seen on Friday putting finishing touches to their plans to travel to Mecca as they continued to mount pressure on the protocol officers in both the Senate and the House on necessity to process their travelling papers early enough.

Some House of Representatives members who are familiar with Saudi Arabia confided in Saturday Tribune that marabouts in the Holy Land would begin to smile to the banks as many of the lawmakers are said to be in the habit of veering off to make spiritual consultations on political matters.

Saturday Tribune can reveal that this year’s Lesser Hajj will record the largest assemblage of Nigerian legislators ever, as the rush by them for the Saudi trip is said to have more of political undertone.

Legislators in separate chats confided in Saturday Tribune that the meetings in Saudi by Nigerian legislators would not but centre essentially on issues about 2011 general elections with reference to individual ambitions and the presidential aspirants who had so far declared ambition to contest in the 2011 presidential election.

One of the lawmakers disclosed that those who attached strict importance to this year’s Lesser Hajj were supporters of two of the presidential aspirants whose names he refused to disclose, noting that it was on the basis of conflicting interests on issue of presidential aspirants that colleagues were invited to join the Saudi train, ostensibly for Umrah.