This was stated by the commission’s chairperson, Mrs. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, in response to a circuiting report on how buses sent to evacuate Nigerian citizens from the Northeast African country were halted in the middle of the Sahara desert because the drivers claimed they had not been paid by relevant stakeholders.
The Nigerians in the Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM) has distanced itself from the $1.2million disbursed by the government and meant to evacuate Nigerian nationals from warring Sudan.
This was stated by the commission’s chairperson, Mrs. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, in response to a circuiting report on how buses sent to evacuate Nigerian citizens from the Northeast African country were halted in the middle of the Sahara desert because the drivers claimed they had not been paid by relevant stakeholders.
She maintained that issues relating to management of funds should be channelled to the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management as well as the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), insisting that the commission did not have anything to do with money released for evacuation by the government.
According to Dabiri-Erewa, about 1,500 Nigerians will arrive in Aswan, Egypt, after which Air Peace Airline will depart for Egypt to transport them into the country.
She said, “NiDCOM as an agency, we don’t know anything about funding. Like I told you, even the Ukraine crisis, some funds were released but not a kobo came to the Diaspora commission. I can't talk about funding because we don't get funded for all these that we do. We just do our job. So you just need to ask the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and the National Emergency Management Agency.
“All I know is that the buses conveying students back, right now they are saying that if you don’t pay us cash, they are not leaving. So that is a problem. 13 buses will soon be arriving. That is what I am going to address now. As I speak to you, we are expecting about 1,500 Nigerians. Air Peace would be leaving tonight from Nigeria to pick them up from Egypt and bring them back safely to Nigeria by tomorrow. 13 buses have gone and about 1500 people have already left.”