For the 327 Nigerians who returned from Libya last weekend, their
sojourn in the late Muamar Gaddafi”s land can better be described as
avoidable journey to hell.
The faces of the mostly youthful returnees as they disembarked from the
Air Memphis aircraft that brought them back home tacitly let out a whiff
of the torture and batter they went through in a country they
mistakenly thought, held out better hopes of brighter life than their
fatherland.
They came in two batches. The first batch of 113 females and 47 males arrived in the country on Friday while 167 males were flown in on Saturday. Dressed mostly in jeans, they were said to have been brought straight from the Garrian prison in Libya. Available statistics showed that 214 of them are males and 113 are females. Among them are 11 under-aged children and one elderly person.
One after the other, they narrated how they were humiliated by the agents of the Libyan authorities. But even in their pains, some of them said bluntly that they would have preferred to remain in the land that rejected them.
Esther Omoreghe who returned with two of her children said she lost her Ghanaian husband and a son in the heat of the Libyan crisis. She expressed regrets for her sojourn in the foreign land and vowed never to allow her children or relations contemplate traveling outside Nigeria.
Relating his experience, Tobi Adisa said : “ The place we were kept for seven months is a detention camp. We call it prison because of the inhuman treatment given to us. One of the guys that arrived with us was shot on his left leg just two days ago. They kill Nigerians like fowl in the camp. It’s a very big camp and the Libyans are very wicked. Last week, a Yoruba boy was also killed”.
Musa Odigie furiously shouted, “They stole my $5,000 and right now I’m back to my country penniless.” While Odigie counted his losses, another angry male returnee, Odion said from behind, “I lost 6,000 dollars to the bastards. They have taken all my money and I’m back here with my wife. How do we cope?”
A young mother, Mrs Oludayo Jessica is from Edo but married to a Yoruba man. Her baby strapped to her back, she narrated how Libyan prison officials wounded her while in their custody. But even at that, she told Sunday Sun she preferred the horrifying experience in Libya to the sweet smell of freedom in her homeland.
“Let me show you my left legs. Oh, my trouser is covering it. Just last week , one of the warders hit me with hot iron. We really suffered in Libya but I still prefer the place. I’m Nigeria by birth but I’m not a Nigeria. Our government is not treating us fine. I’m not a Nigerian o”.
Pretty Francisca Odibo in her fitted jeans and chiffon top confessed also that she preferred life in Libya and therefore sad she was home. “I was doing well in Libya as a hairstylist but found myself in the camp. I don’t like coming back home. I still prefer Libya to this place. Life there is beautiful and you make money once you know what you are doing”.
Unlike these two, Ngozi, cuddling her baby girl, said she was excited coming home. “Libya is a desert. Our women are there doing prostitution with Libyans, Sudanese and Nigerians. I’m happy they brought us back home. There is no place like home. Though my husband did not come with us (he is now staying in Italy), but he keeps in touch with us.”
Earlier while addressing journalists, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) urged the youth to embrace dedication to duty, hardwork and selfless service for the progress and development of the country instead of rushing outside the country for the golden fleece that is non-existent there.
Welcoming the returnees, the Director General of NEMA, Alhaji Muhammad Sani Sidi who was represented by Air Commodore Charles Otegbade, NEMA’s Director of Search and Rescue, pointed out that despite the struggles and challenges one may face in his fatherland, the opportunity to succeed with daily improvement of livelihood abundantly abound in Nigeria without being considered second class citizens.
The Director General further told the returnees that whatever effort or achievement one makes in a foreign land, one is still considered as a second class citizen, and would be deprived of many opportunities that abound in Nigeria. Later, some of the returnees who preferred to depart to their respective homes were assisted with funds and transportation by the Agency.
This idea of repatriation of stranded Nigerians started in March 7, last year, at the peak of crises in some parts of North Africa, and NEMA in collaboration with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and other partners repatriated about 991 Nigerians mainly from Egypt and Tunisia and on February 27, about 292 Nigerians were brought in from Libya to Lagos. Also, 423 Nigerian returnees were received by NEMA at the border town of Gamboru-Ngala in Borno State, in four batches in 2011.
According to a NEMA official, aside the yearnings of distressed Nigerians at the troubled spots, the Federal Government mandated NEMA to ensure that no Nigerian is exposed to dangers in the face of the crises and thus embarked on diplomatic maneuvers to ensure that Nigeria’s chartered aircrafts were allowed to enter the airstrips of the troubled countries to allow easy and fast evacuation of Nigerians in those countries.
Many Nigerians could not be evacuated at the same time because most of them could not be reached at the time of the scheduled evacuation because most of them reside in the rural and remotest parts of those countries. Another hindrance at the time was that many of them could not be reached through the local media like radio and television that were deployed by the Nigerian Embassies and NEMA urging distressed Nigerians to assemble at designated points for evacuation.
The evacuation exercises were multi-faceted with collaborations with the host countries, international organizations such as International Organisation of Migration (IOM), United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), United Nation’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and UNICEF. At the national level , those involved were the Office of National Security Adviser, Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nigerian Immigration Service, Nigeria Customs Service, Department of State Service, Nigerian Red Cross Society, Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, and the Military Joint Task Force in some parts where the exercise took place outside Lagos.
Officials assured that evacuation of returnees from any part of the whole world is a continuous exercise as the government is ready to respond to requests from Nigerians to aid them in returning to their fatherland. Before now, NEMA had repatriated thousands of Nigerians from Thailand, Liberia, Sierra Leone, UK and many other countries.
Culled from Sunnews online
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