Tale of woes as NEMA receives distressed 175 Nigerian returnees from Libya
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said on Thursday that it had received another 175 Nigerian returnees from Libya through the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMA), Lagos. The returnees are 92 male adults, 53 female adults, six male children, 12 female children nine male infants and three female infants. Acting Coordinator of NEMA's Lagos Territorial Office, Mr Ibrahim Farinloye, said in Lagos that they arrived at the airport at about 9.48 p.m. on Wednesday. One of the returnees, Azizat Omoniyi, 21, from Lagos State who abandoned her education when she was 17 years old, expressed regret at her misbehaviour, especially for wasting her father's hard-earned money.
She said would never advise anyone to think of travelling out of the country aimlessly. They don't appreciate what they have until it is lost. Anyone thinking of travelling without set and achievable objectives should forget it. Azizat said her mother died while she was at a tender age and was being catered for by maternal relations, but she felt she was being maltreated and ran away to be with her father. She said from my father's custody, a friend convinced her to meet her in Ibadan where she was introduced to the idea of travelling to Libya where she was told that she could work and receive a monthly salary of ₦120,000. She deceived her father that she wanted to establish a business and he gave me ₦800,000, but she used it for the Libyan trip through the desert.
She narrated that she became a slave and prostitute in Libya and she was not lying, she raised equivalent of ₦2 million as a prostitute to free myself from her trafficker. She lamented that she wanted to go back to school. She stopped schooling at SS2 and have learnt her lessons. The lessons are very, very bitter, she wasted her life. Azizat said she do not know her father's location. She lost everything that she thought she could bring back home when the police raided their house and threw all of them into prison. They were dispossessed of their savings and property. She lost the phone in which she had my father's contact. She have to wait till her transport allowance is paid before she can buy phone and try to gamble with numbers to know if she can get her father's contact, a remorseful experience.
Supreme reports that 158 returnees had arrived from Libya five hours earlier than Azizat's batch. Farinloye said the fresh 175 returnees, which included Azizat, had been stranded in Libya. They departed from Mitiga International Airport, Tripoli, aboard a chartered Boeing 737-400 with registration number 5A-WAC. He said they were received at the Nigerian Aviation Handling Company wing of the MMA. He said he returnees were brought back by the International Organisation for Migration through a voluntary repatriation programme for distressed persons. The EU sponsored the repatriation of the stranded Nigerians who had failed in their attempt to search for greener pastures outside Nigeria.
