CHAIRMAN House Committee on Diaspora, Hon Abike Dabiri-Erewa has vowed to get to the roots of how a 17- year- old Nigerian medical student based in Ukraine, Master Joshua Kunle Abdulazeez was wrongfully deported and dehumanised by the Egyptian authorities last August.
Apparently disturbed by the young man’s narrative of how he was traumatised, starved for four days, his Nigerian passport torn to shreds in last Saturday’s Vanguard, Dabiri-Erewa vowed that “we will invite all the parties involved to the House to explain why a 17 year old boy should go through such a trauma for no fault of his”.
Said she: ”Vanguard is a credible newspaper but we will still hear their own side of the matter and ensure that justice is appropriately delivered.
”I’ve always warned Nigerian parents in different fora to beware of foreign universities because if you compare the cost of private universities here, it is almost the same”.
”Although some like the university of Legon and a few others are well organised, it is still better to try our private universities.
”We’ve had several cases where Nigerian students are killed in the premises of some foreign universities and not even an ordinary condolence letter was written to families of the victims.
” A case in point is that of a Cyprus university where a Nigerian student was killed last year and the school authority did not bother to send a condolence letter to the family of the young man.
”We had to stop Cyprus from further recruitment of Nigerian students as a warning to other countries who come here to scout for students.
”But this case of Abdulazeez would not be treated with kid gloves, like I said earlier we must get to the bottom of this case.
”And to be candid, not until our authorities here start practicing the doctrine of citizens supremacy, this trend may just continue.
”Recently, immediately after Patrick Sawyer imported Ebola into our shores, a Nigerian family traveled all the way to Srilanka to attend a wedding ceremony, they were all deported without undergoing any test.
”It is rather unfortunate as some of the family members came all the way from Britain, the US and other parts of the world to attend the wedding of a family member but because they were Nigerians they were ridiculously ridiculed.
”This trend had to stop but the bodies involved in the fight against such dehumanisation and maltreatment meted to Nigerians are not funded, so what do you expect?, she wondered.
”Nigerian students in Eastern Europe too go through unnecessary stress particularly those in Russia. You won’t believe it, they beg fellow students from Liberia and Ghana for survival.
”Some even beg in supermarkets to survive because they pay high fees and even pay as much as $300 dollars to register courses at the beginning of a session.
”What about Nigerians rotting in Brazilian, Malaysian and Chinese jail houses without fair trial?
”Just last month, the son of an NTA staff was sentenced to death without fair trial and several others that are not reported in the media.
“The issue here is how long will Nigerians continue to suffer this malady that has remained largely unabated”.
Background:
A Nigerian medical student returning to school in Ukraine, Joshua Kunle Abdulazeez in last Saturday Vanguard, gave an account of how he nearly died at the hands of Egypt Air officials who wrongly routed him to Moldova, never gave him food for days and called him bloody Nigerian before deporting him back to Lagos
The student who is lucky to be alive said on Friday, August 15, 2014 my mother and I went to Egypt Air head office at 22B Idowu Taylor Street, Victoria Island, Lagos to book a return ticket for me to go back to school to continue my studies at Dnepropetrovsk Medical Academy, Dnepropetrovsk Ukraine. This was about 11:15 am.
On entering the Egypt air office we met Mr. Tony Nzan on counter 1 to attend to us and we asked to book a ticket to Kiev, Ukraine. Mr. Tony Nzan explained to us the itinerary for the flight going to Ukraine after which we went to the bank to withdraw money and returned to pay for the ticket and obtained two printouts, so that my mother could have my return itinerary from Kiev next year.
We reviewed the ticket itinerary before leaving Egypt air’s office and immediately observed that the airport code indicated on it was different from what we were familiar with, having traveled to Kiev before. The ticket indicated an unfamiliar airport code.
We immediately brought this discovery to another ticketing officer’s attention who was seated at Counter 2, as we were informed that his colleague, Mr. Nzan, had stepped out of the office. This ticketing officer restated that the ticket was full economy and for Kiev, Ukraine with all the segments confirmed. However, we remained unconvinced, given that our prior experience indicated that the airport code for Kiev, Ukraine would usually read “KBP”.
Abdulazeez went through hell for a fault that was entirely not his but he was lucky. So many Nigerian students had died in different parts of the world that the committee on Diaspora led by Hon Abike-Dabiri-Erewa had brought to the notice of the Nigerian government that are still being investigated.
Last March, members of the House cried out condemning the manner in which Nigerian students were being killed in nearby Ghana, Malaysia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirate,UAE.
Dabiri-Erewa in a motion which she sponsored under matters of national importance, entitled, ‘Killings of Nigerians abroad,’ had enumerated and explained how Nigerian students were killed overseas.
She painted a gory picture of how Nigerian students were being murdered in cold blood and sent to their early graves abroad.
The Lagos lawmaker had argued then that “the alarming increase in the number of Nigerian students murdered abroad in search of education has made them an endangered specie.
In Ghana, four Nigerian students have been killed in mysterious circumstances in the last few months.”
She had explained that in October 2013, an SS 3 student of Ideal College, Ghana, 15-year-old Master Austine Ogukwe, died mysteriously.“
”In November, barely 26 days after Ogukwe’s death, two Nigerian students, Eddy and Charles of KNUS Federal University Accra, lost their lives, during an excursion with their school, they claimed they got drowned.
”Only two weeks ago, Mr. Godwin Ayogu, a 300 level Social Science student of University of Cape Coast Central Region was brutally killed on February 20 and his lifeless body was found on campus,” Dabiri-Erewa said.
Explaining further, she said Malaysia police killed one Tunde Adelabu from Ekiti State, a student of Lagenda University, Nilai, Malaysia, adding that more than 80 Nigerian students were currently in danger in Malaysia, according to reports, with no intervention whatsoever from the nation’s embassy in Malaysia.
She said: “Also, a group of unknown Russians last two weeks stabbed a female Nigerian, Forester Samson, to death in Russia.
“In Dubai, Toba Falode, 19-year-old son of a popular sports caster, Aisha Falode, a student of SAE Institute, Dubai, died in mysterious circumstances.
”In South Africa, the humiliating video of a Nigerian man stripped and beaten publicly by South African police has made news all over the world.“
After listening to the gory tales of how Nigerian students died abroad, the Speaker, Aminu Tambuwal had asked members to debate the issue. Dabiri-Erewa in her concluding submission, said the plethora of deaths engulfing Nigerian students was fast becoming very alarming. ”Two weeks ago, our students were brutally murdered in Yobe and then globally, they kill our students almost every other week, this must stop,” she added.
Also, INTERPOL report indicated that in the last five months of this year alone ten Nigerian students as at last May had been killed in very questionable manner across the globe.
