By Onyewuchi Ojinnaka
No fewer than 300 Nigerians with valid returning tickets trapped in China while on business trips before the outbreak of deadly coronavirus pandemic lock-down have appealed to the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) to assist them return to Nigeria.
They also urged the CLO to help them beg President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria to send urgent diplomatic request to the Chinese government to allow them return to Nigeria without further delay.
This development was made known to TheNiche by the Executive Director of Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), Comrade Ibuchukwu Ohabuenyi Ezike.
According to him, in several distress phone communications to the CLO, the Nigerians complained that they had been disallowed to return to Nigeria after they had completed their business activities in China.
He also said that the Nigerians complained that they were being subjected to various inhuman and degrading treatments, including repeated tests, being quarantined in hotels, denial of access to Nigerian foods and serial taking away of their colleagues from their hotel rooms to unknown places.
Consequently, the trapped Nigerians implored the CLO as a human rights organisation to appeal to Buhari and the United Nations to come to their aid and save them from avoidable hardship and death, stressing that the Nigerian Embassy in China had failed to intervene in their interest.
However, the CLO said that its findings indicate that other countries of the world are sending chartered flights to evacuate their nationals from China.
“The countries include but not limited to Canada which has evacuated 137 citizens and the United States of America which had evacuated 392 of their people in that country. Similarly, smaller African countries like Ghana, Republic of Benin and Togo have sent aircrafts to take away their nationals from China to their respective countries.
The stranded Nigerians complain that the worst scenario is that while other countries of the world have not closed their Borders against their returning citizens, Nigeria has blocked her borders against Nigerian returnees to their country. They claim that they have been tested severally and their results prove that they were negative to the dreaded disease.