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…says FG would lessen the number of migrants
From Aidoghie Paulinus, Abuja
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, has said that going by the record of the Libyan authorities, over one thousand Nigerians are still stranded in Libya.
Onyeama who led the Federal Government fact-finding mission team to Libya at the beginning of the year, told Sunday Sun exclusively in Abuja that the figures do not include Nigerians who are in territories controlled by the rebels.
The former Deputy Director-General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) also said the current administration is doing everything possible to reduce the numbers of Nigerian migrants to Europe through Libya significantly in no distant time, and would continue to engage the Libyan government.
Onyeama said: “The figures are not very, very clear yet because some of them, it would appear, are not under the territories controlled by the Libyan government. But amongst those under the custody of the Libyan government, we are talking about over a thousand. That is what the Libyan government claimed.”
Onyeama spoke on this, even as he said the Federal Government would not relent in rehabilitating and reintegrating the returnees into the society. Excerpts
How was your fact-finding mission to Libya?
It went well. We achieved our immediate objective which was to repatriate two batches of Nigerian migrants very quickly.
Some people felt the visit was rather a bit late. What is your take?
It wasn’t late because people had to understand the context. The important thing was evacuation of Nigerians. But this has been taking place. The first thing we needed to do and we did this thing sometime ago; and we were one of the first countries, was to reopen our embassy in Libya because it had moved to Malta at the height of the crisis. The second thing was for us to cooperate with the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
So, Nigerians were being evacuated over the last number of months. Why we went in now was when the issue of mistreatment of Nigerians started to become more prominent. What I did was that I directed the Nigerian Charge d’Affaires in Libya to come back and give us a firsthand account of what was going on.
It also transpired that the numbers of the migrants had increased dramatically and so, the time it would take for the IOM which has smaller planes to repatriate all of them was going to be quite significant in terms of the length of time. So, added to the difficulties and the mistreatment that we were hearing about, it became imperative to move in and take large numbers out at the same time. That is why we intervened when we did.
Do you have figures of how many Nigerians that are still stranded in Libya?
The figures are not very, very clear yet because some of them, it would appear, are not under the territories controlled by the Libyan government. But amongst those under the custody of the Libyan government, we are talking about over a thousand. That is what the Libyan government claimed.
There are also Nigerians who are actually not even in detention centers, who are moving around freely and in some cases, working within Libya, but who also want to leave. So, the numbers of those left are not clearly established because they are not documented. And of course, those that are in the territories controlled by the rebels; it is a lot more difficult to estimate.
We hear different stories here and there. What actually did you witness in Libya?
We visited the camps, they were not comfortable for the inmates and of course, we spoke to the migrants, the children themselves and we heard from them, their experiences. They really were going through very traumatic experiences and we brought that to the attention of the Libyan authorities. The Libyan government was very cooperative in giving us access to them. We met also an alleged Nigerian trafficker; we interviewed her, as well as some of her victims who were to be used as witnesses in an ongoing trial of the lady. Naturally, we did not witness mistreatment of Nigerians because of course, we wouldn’t. But all the migrants were telling us the same stories and this was great cause for concern and we took it up with the authorities.
Something that I also took up with the authorities that I was not too happy about, was the fact that the young girls, in their compartments where they were held, I expected that they would have female guards and that was not the case.
Have you reported back to the president about your findings or is it too early?
It is a bit early. We are preparing a comprehensive report because we haven’t finished yet the evacuation process.
The issue of migration to Europe through Libya didn’t just start today. Are you confident that this administration can put an end to it?
It requires so many different things. Putting an end to it, I don’t know how quickly that will take or either to happen, but clearly, this administration would do everything possible to lessen the number. And the way to do that is first of all, through sensitization of our people, education of our people, jobs for our people and much more rigorous border controls and measures and also, prosecution of traffickers. All those things need to be done and we are working on all of them and we are hopeful that in the short term, we would be able to reduce significantly, the numbers.
Some of the returnees were reported to have protested in Benin, the Edo state capital. What are the concrete steps being put in place by the government to ensure that they are not also stranded within the country?
They won’t be stranded as such within the country because they are in their own country now. What the government is trying to do is to put in place, a programme for rehabilitation and reintegration and we have an agency for that, the National Agency for the Prohibition and Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP). I think that is something that we have to focus on.
You talked about Edo state. I think there has to be cooperation between the federal agencies and the state agencies and I think where you might have problems, is those who fall, maybe between the cracks of the two. So, I think this is something we really have to focus on to ensure that nobody is left in the house or left behind. There has to be real synergy and cooperation between the state and the federal agencies.
The Director-general of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) spoke about those with terrorists, ISIS inclination that if discovered, would be taken care of. Have we had any of such?
No, not to my knowledge. These have been basically economic migrants.
What is the level of our diplomatic relations with Libya?
We have diplomatic relations with Libya. I think what complicates it a bit is that as you know, Libya is coming out of virtual civil war and you still have different competing factions. But we recognised the group the United Nations (UN) and the African Union (AU) recognised to be in control of Tripoli. We are hoping that very soon, a peace accord that was agreed to by the parties under the auspices of the UN would be accepted by all the parties. But otherwise, we have diplomatic relations, we have an embassy in Libya and the delegation was very, very well received by the Libyan government. We met with the president of the country and senior ministers. So, the diplomatic engagement is good between the two countries, but of course, this issue of migrants is just something that we are hoping would not derail the relations. But we are expecting the Libyan government to do the right thing to our migrants.
You mentioned that very influential and powerful people were behind the trafficking. Are there efforts to track them down?
Absolutely, absolutely! And NAPTIP has been doing a lot in this sense. I think they have over 300 convictions actually, but there is still work to be done and we all have to work together in doing that. So, it is one of the, what I would call pre-conditions to be able to really address the situation satisfactorily.
The issue of Nigerians sold into slavery for $400: that revelation is still a huge shock to Nigerians. Did you make efforts to verify if it was actually true?
Yes, we verified as best as we could, because those kinds of things, it is not easy to see active operation. It would require very, very sort of significant and extensive undercover work which of course, the delegation was not equipped to do. So, what we have done is that we’ve sent a technical team to follow.
The delegation I led was really to lay the groundwork in terms of getting the political cooperation of the Libyan government and to facilitate access. Now, the technical team would go in and would be there for the next three weeks and I think they would be in a much better position and better equipped to really look into a lot of these other allegations. But certainly, from what we hear from the migrants themselves, they are treated as property, sexual exploitation and trade and free labour and we heard stories of them being taken from the detention centers and leased out to people for monetary consideration and of course, this is totally unacceptable and we discussed that with the Libyan authorities.
The reaction of the Libyan government was that the Libyan authorities do not condone such behaviour, that it in no way reflects the values of the Libyan government and that any official of them that is found engaging in that kind of activity would be severely dealt with. But as I said, the stories we’ve been hearing have been consistent amongst the migrants.
