Foreign Minister, Geoffrey Onyeama, today announced that the Nigerian Govt is ready to house and feed evacuees – stranded citizen being ferried home.
Two federal parastatal, NNPC and CBN, are to pick the bill, the minister said,
NNPC is the national oil company while CBN is the country’s Central Bank. Onyeama said that both agreed to foot the bill as a corporate social responsibility effort when he approached them.
The noble effort to ferry home thousands of Nigerians stranded all over the world came to a screeching halt at the weekend when it became impossible to pay for their accommodation, feeding and quarantine costs.
Mr. Onyeama said the idea of approaching the two national organisations for support came from his counterpart in the Ministry of Envrionment, Mohammed Mahmood Abubakar, and he was full of profuse thanks to the CBN Governor and GMD of NNPC “for their solidarity.”
The Foreign Affairs Ministry was going to come under severe attacks for its inability to assist citizens the same way that other countries have done, in spite of having to charge them for the one-way return tickets to come home.
Nigeria evacuated 620 citizens from Dubai, UK and the United States before the Ministry became overwhelmed with the sheer cost of putting them in hotels and feeding them for the mandatory 2-week quarantine.
Govt to house and feed evacuees
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