TAKE PROACTIVE STEPS AGAINST ILLEGAL MIGRATION, ANEEJ URGES FG.
30th November 2017.
Press Release
Abuja… The Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice, ANEEJ, has called on the federal government to take steps to stem the increasing incidences of the slavery and deaths of Nigerian migrants worldwide.
Abuja… The Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice, ANEEJ, has called on the federal government to take proactive steps to urgently stem the tide of illegal migration of the nation’s young persons seeking greener pastures abroad, and contends that this worrisome trend of the deaths of Nigeria’s young people in deserts and seas continues to escalate because of seeming government disinterest in the weighty matters involving the lives of Nigerians.
ANEEJ executive director, the Rev David Ugolor made this call as a reaction to an exclusive CNN report detailing the harrowing experiences of Nigeria’s young being sold in Libya for as paltry sums as $400.
‘In ANEEJ, we seek to come to terms with the fact that even though Nigeria is not at war with an external force and exported over $27billion of oil in 2016, and with a GDP adjudged as the largest in Africa, its people are seeking to move to countries not better off than Nigeria, and dying from conditions which violate their dignity and human rights’, the Rev Ugolor said.
On the heels of the revelation that Nigerians are being sold for as low as $400 in Libya to work as farm hands, ANEEJ has added its voice with the UN High Commission for Human Rights, UNHCHR, that the CNN expose should serve as a wake-up call for the government to proactively respond, by looking for ways and means of engaging Nigeria’s young people.
‘Nigeria currently has a population of 182million, with half of that number being young people under 30 years old. Therefore, to harness the raw energy inherent in these young people for optimum productivity, government must engage them in areas like sports, technology, entertainment and entrepreneurship’, the Rev Ugolor advised.
As an immediate first step, the Rev Ugolor advised the Federal government of Nigeria to demand for a publication of the outcome of the Post-mortem examinations of 26 teenage migrant girls found dead in the Mediterranean. He also tasked the UN Office on Human Rights, International Migration Organization, IMO, local agencies, and CSOs, to mandate the EU to restructure its policy of empowering the Libyan Coast Guard and intercept and return migrants on the Mediterranean without violating their human rights and dignity.