Another Batch Of 174 Nigerian Deportees Return From Libya

Another Batch Of 174 Nigerian Deportees Return From Libya

Another batch of 174 Nigeria’s voluntary returnees that were stranded in Libya on Friday returned back to their country.

The Returnees were received at the airport by the Acting Zonal Coordinator of National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) South West Zonal Officer, Segun Afolayan and other Federal Government Agencies.

The Returnees comprised 61 female adults, four female children and eight female infants with 91 male adults, six male children and four male infants.

There was also an unaccompanied Male child among the batch of people that were brought back to Nigeria on Friday through the assistance of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) with support from the European Union in the ongoing Assisted Voluntary Repatriation programme.

The returnees arrived the Cargo Wing of MMIA o board Al Buraq Air at 1:10 am on Friday morning.

Afolayan while receiving them implored them to take precautions with any information that seems to be very easy at getting rich especially when it involves traveling outside Nigeria.

A returnee, Chukwudi Onyemechie, 30 years old from Anambra, said he was a successful auto tyres dealer at Ladipo Market Lagos but regretted to have been fooled by the promise of better life in Europe.

He narrated that a man convinced him that he could help him travel to France and linked him to his friend at Libya.

Chukwudi said he sold off his wares and took off to Benin Republic from where his journey to Libya began.

“I was told that that the journey would be by road but I never knew that it was a deadly and dangerous routes” , Chukwudi explained.

“I entered Libyan town where I was taken to a camp controlled by Nigerians where I spent three months in detention. My trafficker organised my detention in such a way that I would be forced to pay him money.

He asked me to pay some amount to a middleman who later denied that I didn’t pay, making me to pay double”.

Another returnee, Ajasa, Kikelomo, a mother of one from Ibadan, Oyo State left Nigeria in 2016 with the hope of getting better job.

Ajasa, a National Diploma of Hotel and Tourism graduate said she wanted to leave Nigeria because of the various challenges that her family are facing.

She said her husband encouraged her to travel but that she is regretting her ordeals in Libya.

“I got to Libya with God as my savior but the racial discrimination by the Libyans was too bad. If you are unfortunate to enter bus and sits beside a Libyan, throughout the journey, the Libyan will not want your body to touch his own and he would cover his noise throughout.

“Though, some of them are very nice and good but majority especially the youths don’t wish well for the blacks”, she narrated.

Mrs Ajasa said she got a housemaid job where she was being paid 60 000 approximated Nigeria Naira of Libyan 6,000 dinars.

“See if I want to send 20,000 naira to Nigeria, I must part away with 4,000 or 5,000 naira before my family will get the 20,000 naira. There is no banking system there. Nigerians who had settled down are the launderers, they have their Nigerian bank accounts. Once, we pay them there in dinars, we don’t know how they transmit the money to our families who would receive what we agreed on their bank accounts here in Nigeria”.

“I am not happy for the wasted years, if I had stayed back, I could have been more settled and successful. My husband left for Dubai last year but tonight he will be coming back too.

‘’Nigerians should be proud of what they have and work instead of traveling outside looking for what riches that are not available outside”, Ajasa said.