A COMBINATION of factors ranging from untidy government procedure to conflicting signals from the Ministry of Foreign affairs is brewing a situation where many Nigerians are still stranded in Libya even with the approval in principle by the Federal Government for more evacuation operations.
By last week, a total of 2, 278 stranded citizens had been ferried from the troubled north African country via five flights. But there are an estimated 4,000 other immigrants scattered in other cities, hinterland industrial establishments and interior Libyan communities who are said to be willing to return home.
Latest checks at the weekend indicate that hundreds of Nigerians have again besieged the Tripoli International airport in the hope of benefiting from the expected airlifting exercise by Abuja.
The Federal Government, through the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) had originally planned to bring back 2,000 Nigerians home but had to call for further flights when more citizens started pouring into Tripoli even from remote
Libyan villages not envisioned. Most have been in the country without proper documentation and the Nigerian embassy in Libya does not have their records.
But conflicting evacuation procedure, security clearance and politicization have not helped the evacuation exercises. For instance, before the government brought in 1,234 Nigerians early last week to join the 1,081 earlier brought in the previous week, over a thousand Nigerians were stranded and hit by the hard cold of the Tripoli airport for over a week. They were told as the second batch of citizens left, to expect the next plane within 24 hours.
Meanwhile, approval had been given by the Presidency pending security clearance and the diplomatic cover by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The earlier Kabo Air plane that brought in the first batch of evacuees spent 10 embarrassing hours at the Tripoli airport.
One of the two pregnant women who delivered their babies at the Tripoli airport while awaiting the chattered flight was seen on arrival in Abuja with a girl child.
The Guardian learnt that the ministers of state in the ministry Mrs. Salamatu Sulaiman and Idi Hong issued separate directives revolving around procedure for embarkation as well as reception formalities for the evacuees. Memos written to NEMA and other circulars obtained by The Guardian at the weekend confirms this.
Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Damian Agu could not give an update on the precarious situation in Tripoli at the weekend requesting more consultations. The joint exercises involve NEMA, foreign affairs ministry and the Nigerian Intelligence Agency (NIA).
Last Thursday, Air Malta brought in 128 out of 170 mostly Nigerian immigrants in Libya stranded in Tunisian border who came through Malta courtesy of International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) through the Murtala Muhammed International airport, Lagos.
Disclosing last week that President Goodluck Jonathan had approved the evacuation, through additional flights of all Nigerians willing to return home from Libya, the Director-General, Muhammad Sani-Sidi said the IOM and the UNHRC have co-opted other agencies to under the aegis of Third Country Nationals (TCN) project, to evacuate stranded Nigerian citizens caught up by the violence in Libya.
Sidi quoted the President who is the current chairman of the African Union’s Peace and Security Council and chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) expressing high concerns about the wellbeing of Nigerians in continental flashpoints as well as stability in the continent and wants the evacuation of Nigerians from Libya to be carried out “with high sense of sensitivity, responsiveness and mutual respects as not to put lives of our citizens in jeopardy”
Even the understanding at the situation room of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicated tersely last week that “MFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) monitors in Tripoli remain activated. We are on top of the situation” a well placed source who spoke on condition of anonymity admitted that the undue politicking “does the country no favour.”
He said: “Why should members of the national assembly express resentment that after they gave approval, the returnees have not gone to them and so they do not know what is going on and cannot approve more flights even after the president has approved all necessary evacuation flights in principle? Why are they withholding just because some of the returnee citizens said in spite of the hardship and war in Libya, they prefer there to home? Only Nigeria and India have been using jumbo planes to evacuate their citizens. Other nations use mostly smaller jets and yet we still have many more citizens stranded in Libya. This is unacceptable...”
one of the Nigerians waiting to be evacuated in the sixth batch, Nosa Ozogieva said many of them had disappeared in a worrisome manner, from the streets before rescue came last week.“I started hustling in Libya about four years ago. But since last year, I have been selling foodstuff at the Africa market in Tripoli. As I am talking to you now, at the airport, I did not take one single thing from my store. There are many other Nigerians like that because of the war and we have been pushed several times and we had to rush out. I also belong to the Nigerian community and since the trouble with Gaddafi started, many of our people have not been found. The Libyan people were also maltreating us. Some of our people were detained underground without any offence. They said that we are donkeys. This is the problem we were facing before help started coming from home.”
The Nigerian Ambassador to Libya, Isa Aliyu Mohammed, recalled for consultations in March last year after Col. Gaddafi’s split Nigeria spat, is said to be currently on the Jonathan campaign train.
Following the diplomatic feathers ruffled over the Gaddafi comments, Nigeria had a jaundiced mission while incapacitated embassy workers were relocated to Malta in the heat of the current uprising against Col. Gaddafi.
Guardian
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