The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) received a set of 140 Nigerians stranded in Agadas, Niger Republic on Saturday night.
The returnees were brought back to Kano State around 9:38 pm in three luxury buses under the care of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
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Daily Trust gathered that the returnees were brought back through a voluntary repatriation programme for the distressed who had left the country to seek greener pastures in various European countries and could not afford to return when their journey became frustrated.
Addressing newsmen shortly after receiving them, the NEMA Coordinator, Kano Territorial Office, Dr Nuradeen Abdullahi, said the returnees included: 100 male adults, 30 female adults and 10 children (six female and four male).
He said, “The returnees are from different parts of the country, some from Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, Jos, Lagos and Cross River among other States.”
Abdullahi explained that the returnees will be trained for four days to be self-reliant and will be given a grant to start businesses, adding that they were given clothes, food, toiletries, blankets, mosquito net, pampers and sanitary pad.
He called on the returnees and other Nigerians to be ambassadors for advocacy and sensitization against irregular migration, saying that “Nigerians should avoid endangering their lives by travelling to seek greener pastures in other countries, no country is better than Nigeria.”
Speaking to Daily Trust, a returnee Aisha Lawal, from Kaduna State, who is a divorcee and mother of five said she travelled to Libya for greener pasture with one of her kids, “I was a businesswoman before I left my husband, we are suffering and I have no capital to continue with my business that was why I decided to travel to Libya.”
For Leonard Moses, a resident of Plateau State, before he travelled he was working in a company before he was sacked.
“I was sacked from the company I work to make little money in taking care of my six siblings. My parents are dead and I have to take care of my siblings that was why I decided to travel to Libya to search for greener pasture,” he said.
Daily Trust reports that they were received by NEMA, along with other sister security agencies which include Nigeria Red Cross, SEMA, National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and IDPs and DSS.
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