President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday approved the total sum of $8.5m dollars to the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Humanitarian, Disaster Management, and Social Development, towards the evacuation of over 5,000 (registered and unregistered) Nigerians stranded in Ukraine.
This decision was made known by the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Zubairu Dada.
Speaking to State house correspondents, the minister after the Federal Executive Council (FEC), Zubairu revealed that three aircraft would be dispatched to four countries.
According to him, the countries where the pickup flights would be headed include – Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania.
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Two flights from Air Peace and one from Max Air are expected to carry out the evacuation exercise.
Mr Dada said all agencies are fully resourced to ensure that aircraft leave on Wednesday to begin the evacuation. They noted that the flights will embark on a number of shifts until the process is complete.
Africa Today News, New York recalls that the Minister of Foreign Affairs Geoffrey Onyeama had on Monday defended the Federal Government of Nigeria’s response to the evacuation of Nigerians in Ukraine by saying that the country never expected Russia to invade Ukraine.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today which was monitored by Africa Today News, New York, the Minister pointed out that it was difficult to plan ahead because the Nigerian government didn’t know how the situation would evolve and therefore had no clues of what to expect.
‘The majority of people did not know the Russians would invade,’ he said. ‘Putin was saying we are not going to invade, that this is just Americans giving them a bad name as it were. The Americans withdrew their staff, the UK also (issued) a travel advisory.
He went on to add that ‘We got in touch with our embassy staff. They are in the best position to know the situation. And at every point, the ambassador said ‘no, things are calm here’. The embassies in Ukraine were also cooperating. And they were issuing joint assessments of the situation. And they were advising their people not to evacuate. Now, we didn’t know how things were going to evolve.’
Russia started to mass troops at its borders with Ukraine late last year raising fears of an invasion.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK