NAN-H-91
Migrants
Isaac Aregbesola
Abuja, Oct 19, 2016 (NAN) The European Union has earmarked 50 million euros to provide vocational training and necessary skills for gainful employment to illegal migrants from Nigeria and other African countries.
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Geoffrey Onyeama, who stated this at a news conference in Abuja on Wednesday, said the gesture was a fall-out from President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent visit to Germany.
Onyeama said Germany had put measures in place to reduce the number of migrants to their country and wants to empower illegal migrants from Sub Sahara Africa before deportation.
The minister said Buhari had asked for collective efforts to check illegal migrants from the sub region.
He said that what the EU was trying to do was to help Nigerian and other illegal migrants to overcome challenges of returning home.
“Very often Nigerians are not ready to return home because of economic reason and stigmatisation as well as inability to find gainful employment in Nigeria,
“So, the EU’s plan is to put large financial resource of about 50 million Euros together to help African countries to address this problem.
“What they are saying is that they are ready to provide vocational training and some kind of level of education.
“The money and training are to make them skilled and employable when they get back”, he said.
He described them as `economic migrants’, and that the president assured the German authority that he was putting necessary measures in place to address the problem.
He said the measures included improving the education level of the country with the employment of over 5000 teachers.
The minister said Buhari also urged the German authority to consider the legal rights of illegal migrants from Nigeria before their deportation.
“As far as deportation is concerned, we made it clear to them that all the legal rights should be exhausted before they are deported from Germany”, he said.
He said the German government pledged to do everything to encourage their business men to invest in Nigeria.
He said Germany also pledged to share with Nigeria vocational training skills that could be of help to develop Nigeria’s manufacturing sector. (NAN)
IAA/EAL/IEA
===========
Edited by Ekemini Ladejobi/Idahosa Asowata