271 Nigerians To Arrive Lagos From South Africa Friday

The Federal Government (FG) has said 271 Nigerians who voluntarily indicated interest in returning from South Africa will arrive in Lagos on Friday.

NEWSNGR reports that the returnees are expected to arrive early Friday morning aboard an Air Peace flight.

The spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kimiebi Ebienfa, disclosed this in a statement on Thursday.

Ebienfa said that although the incoming returnees make up the fourth batch to arrive in Nigeria, the flight is the government’s official third repatriation flight.

He said the first group arrived on June 11 through Air Peace.

The spokesperson explained that logistical delays affected the second flight, leading to the evacuation of a smaller group of 66 Nigerians on June 25 by the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ValueJet, Kunle Soname.

He added that the ministry’s second official batch arrived on June 30 with 269 returnees, bringing the number of returnees so far to 593.

Ebienfa said three additional flights would be operated in the coming days to ensure that all Nigerians who voluntarily registered, and had been screened and cleared, were safely brought back home.

He said that over 1,000 Nigerians had expressed interest in returning, while the expected number of returning citizens remained at 700.

The ministry also dismissed reports of extortion in the evacuation process.

Ebienfa said all evacuation flights were fully paid for by the Federal Government and came at no cost to the returnees.