The return early this week of 97 Nigerians who were deported from South Africa did much to complicate Nigeria’s embarrassment on the treatment of Nigerians in that country. The deportations were like adding insult to the injury of last week’s xenophobic attacks in which Nigerian homes and businesses were looted and burnt down by South African mobs. Earlier, 41 Nigerian women reported to be victims of human trafficking to Europe were also deported by Mali. The Nigerian returnees from Libya numbered 171 but, happily, they were not classified as deportees, having returned home on their own volition.
The South Africans were careful to describe the offences of the deportees. Six had been found guilty of drug offences, 10 had committed criminal offences, the rest, 81 deportees, had been guilty of immigration offences. The returnees from Libya were a mixed crowd. Many have been in transit for more than a year trying to get to Europe, an adventure which required two dangerous crossings – the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea. The experience of most of them was sobering. Many had gone through near-death experiences, endured the harshest conditions of their existence and had been subjected to savage mistreatment by Libyan authorities.
The origins of these adventures are clear to everyone. The economy is under-performing and there is too much unemployment and even greater underemployment. Sometimes, it may be hard to even get two square meals a day. Last week, 76 bodies were washed ashore the Mediterranean coast, many of them Nigerians.
We believe the country must, once more, renew its appeal to Nigerians to stay home and, even if the ship is sinking, let us salvage it together. It is more rewarding, safer, and even honourable. We need to teach the young that when things are not going too smoothly, it is often a better choice to grin and bear the pain. Hard times usually don’t last. The idea is not to squelch the spirit of adventure in-born in everyone but to discourage reckless adventures.
Among the returnees from Libya was a young lady clutching a new born baby. She was on her way to Italy to make money to help her mother, like so many other young ladies before her. Of the 20 pregnant women in her group, 10 lost their babies in child birth. She was in a crossing where five dinghy boats, each laden more than 100 people, ran into a storm, two of the boats sank, from her boat only half survived. After more than a year of trying to get to Italy, she was grateful to get a bus to her home town from the Murtala Muhammed Airport, thanks to the International Migrations Organization (IOM) which chartered the flight to bring her back home.
We believe that the Federal Government already knows the lure, the pull of Italy and seems to be working on this issue. It should do more to discourage the young ladies. They must be informed that the situation has dramatically changed. The European border patrol agency registered 40,000 Nigerians who entered the European Union (EU) illegally last year. The figure is double what it was in 2015. The EU with a refugee crisis in its hands is not expected to play nice. In its records, Nigeria is the third largest group to enter Europe without valid documents, after Syria and Afghans. The EU refused a total of 6,446 Nigerians the permit to stay in EU in 2016, of which 1,515 were forcibly repatriated. Further EU analysis shows that among nearly 132,000 people who arrived Italy this year, there were virtually no Syrians. Most of them will have their claims of asylum rejected. “Nigerians constitute the largest number of arrivals by sea in Italy this year. Most are fleeing poverty, not the violent Boko Haram insurgency in their country’s Northeast,” noted EU spokesman Preben Aaman. The signs, therefore, are that more deportations are bound to come and Nigerians should be persuaded to stay at home. There is no El-Dorado in Europe or anywhere. The grass is not greener on the other side of the fence.
We urge the Federal Government to provide a more conducive environment for Nigerians to live here, an atmosphere in which people can dream and live in hope, in liberty and freedom.

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