(News Investigators) /National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), on Wednesday received a batch of 162 Nigerians who were stranded in Libya, back into Nigeria.
The Coordinator, Lagos Territorial Office of NEMA, Idris Muhammed, received the returnees on arrival at the Cargo Wing of Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos.
The returnees consisted of 100 females including 4 pregnant women and 62 males.
Eighty-two of them were adult females, 13 children female and 5 infants female. Others are 50 adult males, 4 children males and 13 infant males with 2 minor medical cases.
Mr. Muhammed, while welcoming returnees, urged them to be agents of positive change.
He said they should join the battle against irregular migrations by advising Nigerians who might want to embark on it not to.
“Migration is protected by international and national statutes for movement of people through proper regularisation of papers that would protect and save you against risks of irregular migrations,” he told them.
He stated that NEMA hosted a team from European Union on monitoring and evaluation of the special EU intervention on assisted voluntary return of migrants.
He said NEMA interfaced with them on the ways of improving the present European Assisted Voluntary Returnees projects being run by IOM.
According to him, gaps were identified, especially on logistics causing nightmare to stakeholders and the returnees but on the whole the rescheduling of aircraft-chartered flights would be improved upon.
The exercise which began in April, 2017 is expected to end by April, 2020.
No fewer than 8,808 returnees have so far been repatriated back home to Nigeria from North Africa.
