Nigeria’s former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has expressed concern over the growing rate of Africans taking the back-door route to Europe in pursuit of greener pastures.
Obasanjo blamed the development on the anarchy in Libya.
In a statement issued today in Abeokuta, Obasanjo said there was need for a collaborative efforts by the international community to check the trend.
In the statement titled, “Calling for International efforts to stem the tide of illegal Immigration from Africa to Europe: Facing the facts about Africa Illegal Immigration to Europe”, Obasanjo recalled past efforts to stem the migration, which were successful.
He stated that in 2000, his collaboration with the late Libyan leader, Muammar Ghadafi was successful in checking illegal immigrants to Europe.
“It is thus a matter of considerable sadness for me when I witness the current wave of desperate youths risking their lives to travel to Europe and the futile efforts of the European countries to deal with those who have already set sail or have even reached shores of the European continent”.
Obasanjo noted that, having agreed with the former Libyan leader,Ghadafi on repatriating Nigerian illegal immigrants, a total of 17,000 were returned to the country.
“I also spoke with other West African leaders whose citizens had found their way to Libya and encouraged them to accept responsibility for their repatriation of their citizens back from Libya.
“The efforts led to dismantling of several human trafficking rings operating in Lagos, Benin city, Sokoto and Kano in Nigeria, Agadez, Marad, Dogondoutche and Niamey in Republic of Niger and Gatroun and Sabha in Libya”,he stated.
Obasanjo stated that the current influx of refugees into Europe is a direct consequence of the lawlessness in Libya, after Ghadafi’s overthrow.
“The Libya, which in 2000 acted humanely and responsibly to stem the outflow of illegal migrants to Europe has been replaced by unconscionable bandits and terrorists who forcibly seized the instruments of state to facilitate human trafficking and illegal migration for their own material benefit.”
The Full statement reads: “It is a matter of considerable sadness for me when I witness the current wave of desperate youths risking their lives to travel to Europe and the futile efforts of the European countries to deal with those who have already set sail or have even reached shores of the European continent.
“Sometime in September 2000, the ex-Libyan leader, Col. Muammar Ghaddafi, called me and brought to my attention, the presence in Libya of thousands of Nigerian illegal immigrants attempting to make their way to Europe.
“These illegal immigrants almost entirely consisting of young men and women, who were prevented from using the facilities of Libya to sail to Europe, had constituted themselves into a menace.
“Some of them were involved in crimes and anti-social activities such as credit card fraud, burglary, drug trafficking and even violent crimes such as armed robbery.
“There was tension between the illegal immigrants and local Libyan communities resulting in the immigrants often being subjected to violent attacks.
“I agreed with Ghaddafi on the need to take immediate action to repatriate the immigrants to Nigeria. In this regard, I instructed the National Security Adviser to raise a team of officials from the security agencies to proceed to Libya to document all the illegal immigrants from Nigeria.
“I also approved funds for an aircraft to be chartered to evacuate them to Nigeria. The team worked assiduously over a period of two months with the cooperation of their Libyan colleagues.
“They travelled all over Libya and brought out to safety and provided protection to Nigerians who were in hiding for fear of attacks from local Libyan gangs. A camp was provided by the Libyan authorities where the illegal immigrants were accommodated, provided with basic necessities and documented.
“I also spoke to other West African leaders whose citizens had found their way to Libya and encouraged them to accept responsibility for the repatriation of their citizens back from Libya.
“Those who lacked the capacity to effect the repatriation were assisted by Libya and Nigeria-Libya by providing additional aircraft and Nigeria by accepting the return to Nigeria of citizens of ECOWAS countries, who I then arranged to be transported to their countries from Lagos.”
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Why did Obasanjo not do all that for Nigeria when he was in office? He stole a LOT of the oil money that would have eliminated poverty and created jobs and mass prosperity for Nigerians . . . along with his cronies both Nigerians and foreigners that helped him siphon and stash the loot away in foreign accounts. WHAT exactly is Obasanjo trying to do now? Canonize himself while still alive, as a saint who never stole a dime? Tad too late to be talking about solutions to problems he (Obasanjo) created when he was president.