Moses Ofodeme
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama on Friday, May 15; explained that government asked some Nigerians to pay before being evacuated from abroad because government is no longer buoyant.
He spoke yesterday during the daily briefing of the Presidential Taskforce on COVID-19.
Over 4,000 Nigerians are reportedly stranded abroad and awaiting evacuation; following the global lockdown occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic but some of the returnees were asked to pay about N297,000; apart from their flight tickets for their hotel accommodation for the period of isolation/quarantine on arriving the country.
In the last week, the country had evacuated 678 Nigerians from the United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the United States who are under the care of the Federal Government.
He said the government was not happy that subsequent returnees would have to pay for their 14 days of compulsory isolation and feeding within that period.
He said: “This gives me the opportunity to really communicate to you the challenges we are having with respect to evacuees.
“There has been quite a lot in social media, especially after the recent directives that we communicated to our missions; indicating a certain amount of money that anybody who wanted to be evacuated back to the country needed to pay.
“And it was not just for air ticket, but also accommodation for two weeks and two days and the cost of feeding.
“Now this is not by any stretch of imagination something that the government is happy to do.
“As I mentioned time and time again, if the resources were there, we will evacuate everybody; and if our medical infrastructure was solid and caseload was much lower; we could look at other ways of revisiting our protocol.
“But the way things are at the moment, the fragility of our health infrastructure; the trajectory of the increasing numbers of a positive test being what they are, we have to take the greatest care; with regards to the protocol we adopt regarding people coming home.
“So it has been decided after long discussion and evaluation by the best medical minds that we have that it is best for us, for the interest of the country; that there should be a period of quarantine when any of our evacuees come home, that has a cost too.
“Now, there is a lot of uproar about the costing that we presented for those wishing to come back. But as I said, the resources are not there. But we are still looking for resources all over the place.”