The Nigerian government has announced that it will provide a stipend of at least $100 to Nigerian students stranded in Sudan who are being evacuated and returning to Nigeria.
This stipend will help the students settle down before joining their families. The decision was announced by Abike Dabiri, the Chairwoman of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM) during the weekly ministerial briefing in Abuja on Thursday.
She further stated that the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) would decide on the amount to be given to the returnees as the funding was with the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management.
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Dabiri disclosed that over 5,500 Nigerian students in Sudan would be among the first Nigerian nationals to be evacuated. The returnees will be given recharge cards, SIM cards and sometimes phones by NIDCOM, and a stipend of $100 by the government. The first batch of 13 buses had already left Sudan for the Egyptian border Aswan, where the returnees will be airlifted to Nigeria.
She highlighted the need to focus on Nigerians in African countries, especially in Sudan, where millions of Nigerians migrated years ago and established relationships and businesses.
The federal government is working on data on Nigerians living in Sudan, and according to Ms. Dabiri-Erewa, Sudan could become one of the largest areas where Nigeria has the largest concentration of diaspora Nigerians.
