AFP PHOTO / PIUS UTOMI EKPEI
Barely 24 hours after receiving 157 Nigerians, another 257 returned from Libya yesterday.
The voluntary returnees, courtesy of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), arrived at the cargo wing of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos, aboard a chartered flight.
The Afriqiyah Airbus A330-300 with registration number 5A-OMR landed with 152 adult females and 82 adult males including nine children, 14 infants and one medical case.
The repatriation exercise, spearheaded by IOM with special assistance from European Union (EU), has brought the total number of returnees to 6, 672 from January to December 28, 2017.
The Guardian learnt that most of the returnees are from Vity Centre of Tripoli. They have been engaged in one work or the other, but could not repatriate their earnings back to Nigeria as they would have wished.
Most of them regretted their plights, saying that the Libyans burst their homes and carted away their savings, thus making them returning to Nigeria with nothing tangible except clothes and shoes.
Meanwhile, Director-General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Mustapha Maihajja, who received the voluntary returnees on behalf of the Federal Government, commended the IOM for its efforts at continuing the repatriation exercise at the time when they should be enjoying the festivities season.
Maihajja, represented by South-West Co-ordinator of the agency, Suleiman Yakubu, enjoined the returnees to join hands with various government agencies to unravel the identity of ring leaders who had been deceiving and misleading youths into the regrettable journey.
He assured them that government would treat all information with utmost confidentiality and secrecy needed.
