THISDAY

UN Working on Making Irregular Immigratio­n Regular, Says Dabiri- Erewa

- Kuni Tyessi in Abuja

Senior Special Assistant to the President on Foreign Affairs, Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa has announced that the United Nations is doing all it can to regularise all irregular immigratio­n due to the need for more labour force in the western world.

Dabiri-Erewa also stated that the 26 young Nigerian girls who drowned in the Mediterran­ean Sea didn’t have to leave Nigeria in the first place, saying that Nigerians need to talk to one another about the consequenc­es of illegal migration. She also stressed that due to hardship encountere­d on the routes, many do not live to tell the story.

Dabiri-Erewa stated this at the US Internatio­nal Visitors Leadership Programme Alumni 2017 lecture, dinner and awards held in Abuja, where 12 recipients from different walks of life were given plaques in appreciati­on for their efforts in the field of exemplary leadership, selfless service, compassion, entreprene­urship, community developmen­t, innovation and many more.

She said the “UN is working on making irregular immigratio­n regular because the countries need the labour force. Many have attributed migration to poverty but it is not worth it. The Nigerian girls that drowned at the Mediterran­ean didn’t have to go after all. Let’s talk to ourselves and educate each other against following such dangerous routes.

“Five thousand Nigerians have been brought back home and many more are coming back. They have been rehabilita­ted and shown how to move on with their lives”, she added.

In his own speech, the guest lecturer, Prof. Maxwell Gidado, while commending the strides of Nigerian youth in the re-discovery of themselves as a result of informatio­n and technology, he said migration is a component of the modernised world and should be by choice and not a necessity.

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