Chinelob Obogo and Paulinus Aidoghe, Abuja
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said that the second batch of evacuation of Nigerians will ‘very likely’ take place on Tuesday, September 17, 2019.
Speaking to Sunday Sun, the Consul General of the Nigerian Consulate in Johannesburg, Godwin Adama, said they were still contacting Nigerians who were willing to return one after the other and processing all the required documents to prevent a repeat of the delay experienced during the first batch.
His words: “We are almost done, but we are trying to overcome the challenges we had during the first evacuation. We are calling those interested in coming back one by one because the last time, some of them complained that they didn’t get the text messages we sent to them. This time around, we are being painstaking in order to forestall what happened during the evacuation of the first batch. So, tentatively, we are looking at the evacuation taking place on Tuesday after the documentation would have been completed,” Adama said.
Evacuation of the first batch of Nigerians from South Africa was stalled by the South African Immigration services, according to the chairman of the Diaspora Commission, Abike Dabiri-Erewa.
She said the South African Immigration services had insisted on conducting another round of documentation on the returnees and the situation caused the delay in the take off of the Air Peace flight which was originally scheduled for 9.30am on September 11.
Air Peace flight, which left Nigeria 11:30 pm on September 10, arrived OR Tambo International Airport, Johannesburg by 4:00am and Nigerians turned up in their hundreds for the airlift. The Nigerian High Commission was reported to have prepared travel documents for the returnees but the South African Immigration stalled the process and wanted to know how the Nigerians came into the country and began to arrest them, an official of the commission disclosed.
On the preparedness of Air Peace to carry out the second evacuation, the chairman of the airline, Allen Onyema, said that Air Peace had not suspended the evacuation but was waiting for the Nigerian High Commission in South Africa to prepare the next batch of Nigerians that would be taken out of the country that had become hostile to Africans.
He said that the airline would continue to bring back Nigerians who are willing to return until the last person is taken out of that country.
Onyema disclosed that indications from the Nigerian High Commission showed that about 1000 Nigerians are still willing to return home but the airlift would start after the Commission has finished with paper work to prepare them for the flight home.
“I learnt from the Nigerian High Commission in South Africa that about 1000 Nigerians are willing to return home. So what Air Peace has agreed with the Commission is that when it finishes with documentation, settled with immigration, then the High Commission will notify Air Peace which will deploy aircraft to bring them back.
“This is to avoid what happened last time when 320 passengers were expected to be airlifted but South Africa authorities allowed 187 to make the flight,” Onyema said.