NEMA receives another batch of 116 Nigerians from Libya
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) says it has received another batch of 116 Nigerians, who volunteered to be repatriated back to Nigeria from Libya.
Acting Coordinator, Lagos territorial office of NEMA, Ibrahim Farinloye, received the returnees on behalf of, the Director-General of the agency, Mustapha Maihajja.
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Farinloye said that the Nigerians arrived the cargo wing of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, late on Wednesday night.
According to him, the returnees were brought into the country via Al Buraq Air Boeing 737 Aircraft with flight number UZ 188/26 and registration number 5A-DMG-MJI.
He said that the returnees were brought by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and European Union on the platform of the Assisted Voluntary Returnees programme.
Farinloye said after profiling, the returnees comprised 48 female adults, two female children, five female infants as well as 53 male adults, five male children and three male infants.
Apart from NEMA, other agencies that received the returnees include the Nigeria Immigration Service and the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP).
One of the returnees, who identified herself as Sola Adeleke, 38- year- old, appealed to the federal government to deal decisively with human traffickers, who mislead Nigerians with fake information on greener pastures that do not exist outside the country.
Adeleke, an indigene of Ibadan, Oyo state, said the traffickers subject their victims to inhuman treatment they would never expose their children to.
Narrating her ordeal, the returnee, said she dropped out of school at primary four, adding that her mother approached a neighbour who was known to be helping young people out of the country.
“The man told my mother that he would help me to get a good job and that I don’t need to pay a dime in Nigeria, but until l start work for a year,” she said.
Adeleke, a mother of five and divorcee said it was the hardship her mother and she were experiencing that made her mother to decide that she should follow the trafficker.
”My inability to communicate in English changed everything negatively as soon l got to Libya in 2016, as the well-known nice man (trafficker) turned out to be something different.
“He (trafficker) told me that I will work for him for one and half years without giving me a dime to take care of my feeding or anything.
“In Libya, once a lady gets there, the traffickers forced women to go into prostitution and if she refused, there is a place that she would be taken to be flogged mercilessly.
”And by the time she survives the punishment, she would beg to prostitute freely for the trafficker to get his money, which is faster than being a housemaid.
“I will never advise anyone to travel to Libya or anywhere because the people are evil. l paid the man more than N1 million without bringing anything back. My children have suffered enough and l have returned to take care of them,” she said.
