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December 2, 2017
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Fellow Nigerians abducted, sold us into slavery in Libya –Returnees
Dayo Oketola, Adelani
Adepegba, Kunle Falayi,
Alexander Okere
I
n the midst of the
uproar over revelations
that Libyan nationals
are buying and selling
migrants as slaves in
Libya, Saturday PUNCH has
learnt that Nigerians based in
the country also sell their fellow
countrymen.
This emerged as more
Nigerians are repatriated by
the International Organisation
for Migration with the backing
of the European Union in an
ongoing exercise that has seen
1,295 retrieved from Libya in
November alone.
Since the b eginning of 2017,
IOM-facilitated repatriation has
brought back 5,578 Nigerian
migrants, who were trapped
in and outside prisons across
Libya.
On Thursday night, 150
migrants from mostly Edo and
Delta states arrived the country
aboard a Buraq Airplane at the
cargo terminal of the Murtala
International Airport, Lagos. It
was two days after 239 migrants
had also been brought into the
country.
Many of the returnees, who
were thankful for being back,
confirmed to Saturday PUNCH
that they were sold by their
fellow countrymen, who were
getting rich in Libya.
One of them, 26-year-old
Odion Saliu, a hairdresser
from Edo State, said she was
kidnapped and handed over to a
Nigerian, who forced her to call
her mother.
According to her, her mother
in Benin paid N200, 000 but
she was again sold by the same
Nigerian for 3,000 dinars
(about N794, 000).
Saliu explained that the
Nigerians spoke Pidgin English
and some Nigerian languages.
She said, “When I was
kidnapped with others and
held for some weeks, the Arabs
asked if I wanted to be taken to a
Nigerian and I readily said yes. I
was very happy that I was going
to someone from my country.
But it was a lie.
“The Nigerian they took me to
locked me in a cell and told me to
call my mother and ask for N60,
000. The man said he would sell
me to a connection house if my
family did not get the money. I
called to inform my mother and
the trafficker who facilitated my
journey from Nigeria.
“But the trafficker spoke
with them on the phone and
told them the amount they
demanded was too small. They
increased it to N200, 000. My
mother paid into an account
after they provided her with the
account number over the phone.
“The Nigerian said if I wanted
to cross the sea, I had to pay him
again. But when we got to the
seaside, he sold me again.”
Another Edo State indigene,
Sunday Anyaegbunam, left
Nigeria along with his wife in
April.
He said during their nine-day
journey through the desert, they
were sold twice by Nigerians.
According to him, when their
Nigerian “burger” (trafficker)
sold them to another set of
Libyan traffickers at Agadez,
Niger, the traffickers sold him
and his wife to a Nigerian who
took them to Sabha, Libya,
where they were separated in
different cells.
“We were made to contact our
families on the phone and I had
to ensure the payment of N400,
000 for my release and N300,
000 for my wife,” Anyaegbunam
said.
Like others, he could only
identify the Nigerians trading
in their countrymen in Libya
through the Nigerian languages
they spoke and their accent.
He said, “The Nigerians
selling people in Libya are more
wicked than many of the Arabs.
I have never seen people so
heartless as the Nigerians who
bought and sold me.
“There are many of them
in Agadez and Sabha, who are
making so much money from
selling their own people. But
there are other West Africans
doing the business too.
“When you approach them
and say, ‘Please, my brother,
help me.’ They would tell you,
“No brother in the jungle.”
A 25-year-old woman, Esosa
Osas, who was in Libya for
six months, said she also met
many Nigerians selling their
countrymen.
“You dare not talk to them,
else they would beat you and
lock you up. They sell women
for 5,000 dinars and men for
N4, 000 dinars. I noticed that
the connection houses were also
controlled by Nigerian women.”
All these accounts were
corroborated by 35-year-old
Harrison Okotie who lived in
Libya for three years until his
repatriation.
“Nigerians and Libyans are
doing the business like they are
one big happy family,” he said.
Most of the migrants who
arrived Nigeria on Thursday
were from Edo State.
Officials of the state’s task
force on illegal migration were
on hand with luxurious buses
to transport their people back
home.
A member of the task force,
Mr. Okoduwa Solomon, told
Saturday PUNCH that his team
had made six such journeys to
the airport within the last one
month to take their indigenes
repatriated from Libya back
home.
He said, “The first process is to
take them through counselling,
then we profile them.
“After that, we put them in a
home that the state government
has provided for the returnees.
The Edo State Government is
paying each of the returnees
from the state a stipend.
They are going to undergo a
training in agriculture, poultry,
fishery and others to make them
useful to themselves and the
system.”
Officials of the National
Emergency
Management
Agency coordinate the reception
of the returnees at the airport.
South West Zonal Coordinator
of the agency, Mr. Yakubu
•L-R: Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha; Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo; wife of the Imo State Governor, Mrs.
Nkechi Okorocha; Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha; and Mrs. Folorunsho Alakija, during
the inauguration of Woddi Wellness and Diagnostic Centre to commemorate the 50th birthday of Nkechi Okorocha, in
Owerri... on Friday. State House
Sulaiman, said the returnees
would be lodged in a hotel where
they would have the chance to
clean up before their journey back
home.
Meanwhile, President, Women
Arise and Centre for Change, Dr.
Joe Okei-Odumakin, has called
on the Federal Government to use
all diplomatic channels to prevail
on the Libyan authorities to
ensure the dignity of our people.
She said in a statement
on Friday that it was an
embarrassment that Nigerians
who were treated like royalty in
the past were being dehumanised
in a foreign land.
“We must build a country where
our people have opportunities
to prosper and lead useful and
productive lives and will only
travel on leisure and business and
not as illegal migrants desperate
to live anywhere other than
Nigeria,” she said.
Over 400,000 Nigerians,
others still stranded in Libya
–AU Commission
Meanwhile, Head, African
Union Commission, Moussa
Faki Mahamat, has said that over
400,000 Nigerians and others
remain stranded in Libya.
Hundreds
of
thousands
more — “400,000 to 700, 000,”
according to Mahamat — remain
stranded.
European and African leaders
have set themselves a tall order
to stamp out horrific abuse of
African migrants, some of them
are Nigerians in Libya , where
thousands are suffering in a vast,
lawless territory.
On Thursday, a summit of the
African Union and the European
Union set a goal of immediately
repatriating 3,800 migrants
languishing in a camp near
Tripoli.
But experts pointed to a
daunting array of hurdles, from
extracting migrants in perilous
situations to giving them
incentives to stay put when they
return home.
Even so, the summit’s
commitment, initiated by outrage
over a CNN television report on
black Africans being sold as slaves
in Libya, is being welcomed.
“It is a step in the right
direction,”
International
Organisation for Migration
Europe Director,
Eugenio
Ambrosi, told Agence France
Presse by phone from Brussels.
“It is a little bit too much to
think it will solve the slavery
issue, but it would definitely
mitigate (it) to some extent,”
Ambrosi said.
He said the summit also
showed there was now
“international
watchdog
pressure” that could be brought
to bear on the criminal gangs,
but it must be “sustained.”
The drive was announced at a
meeting on the summit sidelines
organised by French President,
Emmanuel Macron.
It brought together eight
other EU and African countries
as well as the AU, EU and United
Nations representatives.
Macron said the UN-backed
Libyan government of Prime
Minister Fayez al-Sarraj had
identified and granted access to
the worst camps to enable the
returns of people who want to
go home.
The Macron group also
decided to work with a task
force, involving the sharing of
police and intelligence services,
to “dismantle the networks
and their financing and detain
traffickers,” he said.
They pledged to freeze the
assets of identified traffickers.
The AU is expected to set up
an investigative panel and the
UN could take cases before the
International Court of Justice.
Libya calls for campaign
against human trafficking
The Libyan government
has condemned the reported
auction of West Africans in its
capital Tripoli, noting that the
criminal practice was not part of
the culture of the Libyan people.
It called for an international
campaign
against
illegal
migration and demanded an end
to “exploitation, the suffering
of the ambitious African man
looking for better life in Europe
and human trafficking right
from the country of source.”
Speaking on the alleged
auction of West Africans in his
country at a press conference
on Friday in Abuja, the Charge
d’Affairs
and
ambassador-
designate, Libyan embassy in
Nigeria, Dr. Attia Alkhoder,
explained that his government
had ordered the relevant agency
to carry out a comprehensive
investigation into the incident.
He said the government was
concerned about illegal migration
and human trafficking, adding
that Libya needed technical and
logistical support to control its
southern border, which is the
major route for illegal migration
across the Mediterranean Sea.
The diplomat criticised the
media for attacking and holding
his country responsible for the
slaves’ auction, noting that human
trafficking and the reported slaves’
auction were done by individuals
and not the Libyan authorities.
Alkhoder
said,
“Libya
renews its call to put an end to
exploitation, the suffering of the
ambitious African man looking
for better life in Europe and
human trafficking.
“Libya calls for an international
campaign to put an end to this
phenomenon
by
providing
security and border control to
end the Libyan crisis, unify its
government institutions and
end the transition system that
contributed a lot in the weakening
control of territory.”
The envoy noted that solving
illegal migration was a collective
responsibility involving countries
of origin, transit and destination.
He added that Libya spent a
lot of money accommodating
immigrants and facilitating
their voluntary return to their
countries, insisting that curbing
illegal migration needed serious
coordination of international
efforts.
Returnees get N100m, 150
hectares of land for farming
Governor Godwin Obaseki
of Edo State has approved a
seed capital of N100m and 150
hectares of land for 150 victims of
human trafficking, who recently
completed skills acquisition
training in the state.
Obaseki announced this on
Friday during the graduation
of the participants of the
programme, which was organised
by
the
Edo
Agricultural
Development Programme in
Benin City, the state capital.
He also directed the Ministry
of Agriculture and Natural
Resources to immediately liaise
with the relevant authorities
towards securing the land for
the returnees to commence their
agricultural businesses.
According to the governor,
the beneficiaries would be
put under the supervision of
the Benin-Owena River Basin
Authority and the EADP.
Obaseki stressed the need
for coordinated efforts to end
modern slavery.
He
stated
that
the
International Day for the
Abolition of Slavery, marked
on December 2 annually by the
United Nations, should be seen
as a day for deep reflection on
how to bring the illicit trade to
an end.
Obaseki said, “We ordinarily
should not be talking about the
menace of slavery given the
experience we have had. But it
is a reality today and we have no
choice but to tackle it.
“However, it is pertinent to
point out the fact that modern-
day slavery, in its various
forms, such as forced labour,
debt bondage, and human
trafficking, has no place among
us. To effectively abolish slave
trade as we have it today, it takes
a coordinated, deep-reaching,
international coalition that will
take into cognisance the various
forms of modern-day slavery
and compel perpetrators to back
down.”
He, however, commended
the returnees, comprising 51
trained on crop production,
15 on agro-processing, 68 on
livestock farming and 52 on fish
farming, for participating in the
programme.
He also urged them to be
ambassadors in the state-wide
campaign against human
trafficking and illegal migration.
Earlier, the Programme
Manager of the EADP, Mr. Peter
Aikhuomobhogbe, commended
the state government for
initiating the training and
expressed optimism that the
trainees would put the skills
acquired to good use.