Geoffrey Onyeama, minister of foreign affairs, says it is
regretful that the federal government cannot bring back all the Nigerians
willing to come back to the country over coronavirus.
Speaking at the daily briefing of the presidential task
force on COVID-19 in Abuja on Wednesday, Onyeama said the priority of the
government now is to bring back some students stuck in Khartoum, Sudan.
The minister said the government had to “bend over
backwards” to put in place a plan to get them out of the country.
“The financial aspect of this is one that we are very
mindful of. We have some students who are stuck in Khartoum in Sudan, we have
to bend over backwards because they are our young children to find the
resources to pay for their return and also pay for their two-week isolation but
unfortunately for all the others, we just don’t have the financial resources,”
he said.
“As you can see, the huge amounts of money we have to pay
for the challenge, so unfortunately, it is a source of great regret for the
government that we are not in a position to pay – we will be more than happy to
pay for everyone free of charge, to pay for their stay in isolation centre for two
weeks but the reality is that we don’t just – and that’s the situation for
now.”
He added that there are not enough facilities for Nigerians
willing to come back home.
“We took medical advice and we asked the medical people what
was possible and the figure we were given was 200 in Lagos and 200 in Abuja,”
he said.
“This is much less than the numbers waiting to come back. We
are just constrained by the facilities that are available.
“Unfortunately, we have internal challenges, as you can see
the figures are going up all the time and we have a great responsibility to
show that these facilities are also there to deal with the immediate
challenges.”
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