NAN-H-32
Training
By Adekunle Williams
Lagos, Feb. 12, 2018 (NAN) The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the European Union on Monday in Lagos began a four-day training for 62 Nigerians who voluntarily returned from Libya.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the returnees, comprising 25 males and 37 females are being trained on micro-business and skills acquisition.
Mr Abraham Tamrat, the IOM Lagos Programme Coordinator in-charge of Migration Management, said the purpose of the training was to reintegrate the returnees into the society.
Tamrat said the reintegration was a strategy to create decent work and alleviate the impact of irregular migration in the country.
He said that the returnees would be trained on business skills and cooperatives.
Tamrat said it was EU funded, in partnership with the Nigerian government.
“This training is part of the larger reintegration programmes; the first training is on business skills psychosocial support first aid training and a little bit of value chain cooperative and partnership.
“It is a training that is provided for each returnee; and it is to help prepare them for the reintegration support to their various communities,” he said.
Tamrat said the trainers had plans for every returnee in terms of reintegration, with three major components for the exercise.
“The first one is the individual basis reintegration; the second one is the collective basis reintegration, where returnees work with other returnees in a group, and they also partner with potential migrants.
“The third one is the community basis reintegration; this is where we try to address the impact that such large scale of returnees might have on the communities,” he said.
According to him, there will be projects that are implemented to resolve some community-level problems, while creating jobs for returnees and unemployed youths.
He said that all these reintegration support were being implemented in collaboration with the government of Nigeria and Civil Society Organisations.
“For example, the training that we are providing here is being implemented along with the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) and Patrotic Citizen Initiatives, working on reintegration aspects.
“The first training of this kind started in Benin City, and we had a previous one here in Lagos, while there is another training in Abuja.
“Meanwhile, the major states we are focusing on are Lagos, Edo, Delta , Imo, Ogun and Abuja,”he said.
Mr Osita Osemene, the Executive Director, Patrotic Citizens Initiative, said one major training for the returnees was to repackage their thinking for the benefit of themselves and the country.
Osemene, who is also a returnee from Libya, said he was privileged to be given the duty of training other fellow returnees from the volatile North African country.
“As a returnee, I went to Libya devastated and traumatised; and on my return to the country, I started going through a self-rehabilitation programme.
“That is why I realised that anyone who passed through what I went through must be rehabilitated, because if left alone and neglected, the society will be affected negatively,” he said.
Osemene said the training would impart on them a positive life thinking and give them the ability to move ahead, for them to be relevant and useful to the society.
“Everything you need in life to survive is here in Nigeria. We all know that things are difficult, but the returnees must leverage on this opportunity to empower themselves.
“It is important that they go through this business skills, and they can add these skills to the skills they might have had before.”
One of the returnees who sought anonymity said she had been living in Libya for the past 16 years with her family.
“We have been trying to return to Nigeria, but it was not easy at all, but all thanks to the IOM for bringing me and my family to Nigeria,” she said.
According to her, the country has lost so many youths to the Libyan rebels in the country’s desert.
“It is not a good experience at all; one should not advise friends and family to embark on such dangerous journeys,” she said. (NAN)
WAC/FLP/SOA
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Edited by Folorunso Poroye/Oluwole Sogunle