Aidoghie Paulinus, Abuja

Following upsurge in trafficking of Nigerians to the Middle East, particularly, Saudi Arabia, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, has said the Federal Government will embark on a fact-finding mission to the country.

Onyeama disclosed this when he held talks with the Director-General of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Ms Julie Okah-Donli, yesterday.
Okah-Donli had, on a familiarisation tour to the ministry, last month, bemoaned mass recruitment of Nigerians to Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries.

“The new dimension now, which is giving all of us serious headache, is this mass recruitment to Saudi Arabia, Oman, Dubai, Egypt and so on, by agents, under the guise of providing employment as house-helps and nurses to Saudi Arabian nationals,” Okah-Donli said at the April meeting.

The parley between Onyeama and Okah-Donli was in furtherance of the earlier meeting, which was to fine-tune ways of how to nip the situation in the bud.

Briefing newsmen after the meeting, Onyeama said there was a cloak of legality about the development and that the Ministry of Labour will sign a labour agreement with Saudi Arabia,  to send people to engage in unskilled labour.

Onyeama said it is based on the agreement that the Saudi government and its embassy in Abuja will issue visas to Nigerians who intend to work in Saudi Arabia.

“Agencies would be the ones organising it and they would get to Saudi Arabia and we are hearing all kinds of horror stories. We want to tackle it at source. Clearly, there is an issue. Young girls especially, but, young people who are going to Saudi Arabia to do unskilled work is a problem and we want to tackle that.

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“So, the first thing we are going to do is that we are going to send a team to Saudi Arabia; to ascertain the facts and the circumstances.

“We are going to meet with the Ministry of Labour and have NAPTIP involved in this process of giving licences, agreement or whatever, for these girls to obtain visas and we are also going to engage with the Saudi Embassy here on this question,” Onyeama said.

On Nigerians trafficked to Libya, Onyeama said not all of them are interested in returning to the country.
In the April 29 edition of Sunday Sun, Okah-Donli said there are still 3,000 Nigerians in Libya.
Regardless, Onyeama said majority of those trafficked to Libya have been brought back by government.

“We have brought back the vast majority who want to come. Our mission there is primed and working continuously; to bring back those who still want to come back and are left there.

“And, of course, the International Organisation for Migration is also helping with that,” Onyeama said.
Speaking earlier, Okah-Donli said her visit to the ministry was to see how the country can reduce flow of girls going to Saudi Arabia for unskilled labour since it has become a huge problem to the country.

“A lot of girls going to Saudi Arabia and the reports we hear are not pleasant to the ears. A lot of them are stranded there.

“So, I just came to see how we could stop that from happening or reduce it,” Okah-Donli said.