The National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, on Tuesday received
another 257 Nigerian voluntary returnees flown back from Libya.
Hundreds of Nigerians stranded in Libya have returned to the country in 2017.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the latest returnees arrived
at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, in a chartered
Airbus A330-200 flight with Registration number 5A- LAT at 9.15pm.
They had been stranded in the course of their failed attempt to cross over to Europe through the volatile North African country.
The returnees were assisted back to Nigeria by the International
Organisation for Migration, IOM, while the Italian Government provided
the aircraft.
They were handed over to the Zonal Coordinator of NEMA Southwest,
Suleiman Yakubu, who received them on behalf of federal government.
The females among the returnees comprised 241 adults, two children
and five infants while the male comprised four adults, four teenage boys
and one infant.
Mr. Yakubu enjoined the returnees to embrace the change mantra of the federal government.
He urged them to remain positive and focused on contributing their
quota to national development, instead of seeking greener pastures where
it doesn’t exist.
Mr. Yakubu noted that they would not be treated as second class
citizens in their own country, unlike what they face abroad after
migrating illegally.
He disclosed that the European Union was providing the reintegration
assistance, urging them to make use of the initiative and better their
lives.
NAN reports that other agencies present when Yakubu received the
returnees were the Nigerian Immigration Service, the National Agency for
the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, the Federal Airports
Authority of Nigeria and the Police.
(NAN)