The first set of stranded Nigerians in Sudan reportedly arrived in Egypt on Thursday evening.
The Chairman of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), Abike Dabiri-Erewa, confirmed this while responding to a tweep on Twitter.
According to her, the first set of buses conveying the citizens arrived late in Aswan when they already closed the border but they are expected to leave early in the morning and proceed thereafter to the Airport.
“The first set has arrived at the Aswan border in Egypt but the border is already closed. They will leave early morning and then proceed to the airport,” Dabiri-Erewa noted.
OsunDaily News understands that the NiDCOM boss revealed this while replying to one [@owolabitaiwo] who said on the microblogging platform that there shouldn’t have been any problem after such bogus money was used for this emergency evacuation.
“We can’t spend $1.2mln on buses for a simple drive-through and have cases of abandonment anywhere.
It’s not head-off ooooh,” the citizen said.
Earlier on Wednesday, Federal Government disclosed that $1.2 million (about N560 million when converted to Nigerian currency) had been spent to evacuate Nigerians stranded in Sudan to safe places by road.
Giving an update on the evacuation process yesterday, the Minister of State, Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Zubairu Dada, told State House correspondents after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, that no Nigerian had died in the fight between military factions in Sudan so far.
“We are confident we shall not lose any life in this exercise to evacuate stranded Nigerians,” Dada said.
Dada said the Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and staff of the Nigerian commission in Egypt and Ethiopia are currently on the ground at the Egyptian border in Aswan to receive close to 40 luxury buses conveying Nigerians who had left the Sudanese capital, Khartoum by road.
Speaking further, the Minister said the Saudi Arabia government had already assisted in evacuating some Nigerians through the sea, a development he said was commended by the federal government.
Addressing journalists also, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, said the process started after the federal government had overcome some challenges, adding that it would take a couple of days to evacuate stranded Nigerians.
He affirmed that $1.2 million had been spent so far on the current effort to move them by road. Onyeama said once they were safely moved to Egypt, other arrangements would be effected to airlift them back to Nigeria.
Both Ministers said women and children would be given priority before diplomats who were equally involved in the evacuation logistics.
