By Dipo Olowookere
Human right activist and President of Women Arise, Dr Joe Odumakin, has kicked against the maltreatment of Nigerians in Libya describing it as “an embarrassment to all those whose humanity is still alive.”
Mrs Odumakin, in a press statement this week, indicated that the statics of over 10,000 Nigerians who have lost their lives in 2017 to illegal migration through the Mediterranean Sea, and Nigerians being auctioned for as low as $400 has become very worrisome.
Hence, she has charged the federal government of Nigeria to take urgent steps to halt these barbaric actions against Nigerian nationals.
She said, “The horrific images of the serial maltreatment of Nigerians in Libya have become a great embarrassment to all those whose humanity is still alive.
“In recent times there have been reports of killings, brutalisation, sexual violence and all sorts of degrading actions being visited upon our citizens.
“It is so tragic that Nigerians who walk tall in world capitals years back and were treated like Kings and Queens are now being treated less than human beings.
“About the most terrifying is a documentary on CNN showing our citizens being auctioned for as low as $400.
“About 10,000 Nigerians have died in 2017 while trying to migrate illegally to the Mediterranean Sea.
“In all these, there have been no concrete steps taken by our government to show that we care about our citizens and halt these barbaric actions against our citizen.
“Women Arise calls on the Federal Government to rise in aid of our citizens by using all diplomatic channels to prevail on the Libyan authorities to ensure the dignity of our people while effort is being made to take them out of that fiendish environment.
“But more importantly is the need to ensure we make our country conducive for our citizens to live in.
“We must build a country where our people have opportunities to prosper and lead useful and productive and will only travel on leisure and business and not as illegal migrants desperate to live anywhere other than Nigeria.
“Our authorities must know that it is failure of governance that is exposing our people to these degrading conditions out of our shores.”
