Nigerian returnees from Cote D’ivore not in hurry to go back after war

Posted by admin Africa & World Politics, Headlines Sunday, May 15th, 2011

Most Nigerians who returned from Cote D’ivore during the last civil war in the country have said that they are not in a hurry to return to the cocoa rich West African francophone country.

Even though many of them said they were yet to engage in any money making venture to sustain them when they arrived, they claimed that the situation in Cote D’ivore was not yet encouraging to attract them to the country where they had lived for many years.

They also denied that there was any of them who was yet to identify his ancestral home or family compound since they arrived Nigeria.

Over 13,500 returnees are residents in Ejigbo and Iwo in Osun State with over 90 per cent of them concentrated in Ejigbo.

Speaking in separate interviews in Ejigbo on Friday, the few of them who spoke, maintained their insistence to remain in Nigeria.

A septuagenarian, Mr Ganiyu Busari, who escaped from his base in Abobo, a surburb of Abidjan, said that he was not prepared to go back to the country any longer.

Born in Ejigbo in 1941 but left Nigeria for Abidjan in 1965, Mr Busari who stated that he learnt radio and television repairs said that he moved to practice in Cote D’ivorie because of the conducive atmosphere.

According to him, “I used to visit Nigeria occasionally and I came home in 2002. Although I don’t have a personal house here in Ejigbo, but I don’t think I will go back again and I am ready to engage in any work that is available.”

Asked whether there was anybody who could not locate his family amongst the returnees, Mr Busari said he could not identify any of such person.

Another returnee, Mrs Taibat Afolabi who said that she was born in Abidjan in 1971 and married to an Ejigbo indigene in Cote Divorie stated that if she could find a job to engage her at home she would not like to go back.

“I used to deal in petty trading which I did in villages on market days. I may not like to go back because of the terrible experience we encountered during the civil war. Right now, I’m yet to lay my hands on any business because I did not come to Nigeria with money. We left Abidjan in a hurry and all my belongings are still there. My money is still with some of my debtors in villages there,”she revealed.

Mr Rueben Oyeniyi, a welder in Abidjan, rode a motorcycle to Nigeria when he escaped during the war. He said he had only N10 on him when he arrived Ejigbo. He insisted that he would not like to go back if he could get support from people to establish his welding business.

Another septuagenarian, Pa Jacob Adetoro said that his age would not allow him go back there.

The returnee who was born in 1939 but went to Abidjan in 1955 on a trading trip, stated that he would not go back should normalcy return to the country.

He confirmed that few people who had gone back sent words home that the atmosphere in the country was yet to be conducive for any return.

“From the reports sent to us by few of our people who have gone back to Abidjan, although they said that the indiscriminate killings of innocent citizens had stopped, banks are yet to open while those working in offices are yet to resume. Even what baffles us is the news of the stench odour oozing out from the decomposed bodies of those killed during the war and the fear of the outbreak of epidemics in that country,”he stated.

However, the chairman of the caretaker committee of Ejigbo Local Government Area, Mr Tiamiyu Abiodun Akinwale said there was no indigene of Ejigbo among the returnees who did not know his or her family compound.

Mr Akinwale who said that the council is not housing any of the returnees said that “though many of them have left home for a long time, when they arrived, the people in the town, especially the elders, assisted them to locate their families after interviewing them.”

The council boss said that many of them who left home in the 1950s when no tarred road passed in front of their compounds lost memory of the locations of their compounds but said that elders assisted them to locate their families through oral history.

Mr Akinwale said that there were over 11,000 returnees in Ejigbo, adding that the council registered over 9,000 before it stopped registration while the state government brought another batch of 1,405 returnees through a special arrangement.

The chairman said that the state governor, Mr Rauf Aregbesola, released N10million which was shared at N2,000 per person and 100 bags of rice while his wife, Mrs Sherifat Aregbesola, donated some bags of rice and beans as well as drugs to the returnees.

He said that his council also provided N1 million and 100 bags of rice to the returnees, while a non-governmental organisation, Adventist Development Relief Agency (ADRA), donated clothing materials and daily needs to them.

He also disclosed that officials of the National Emergency Maintenance Agency (NEMA) visited the council but was yet to make any donation.

Mr Akinwale added that the problems of the returnees included feeding and health care, saying that some of them had malaria and diarrhea when they arrived the country.
He appealed to corporate bodies, international agencies and capable individuals to come to their aid.

-Tribunewp_posts