From Victor Osula, Abuja
Issues of payment for drivers that led to the abandonment of Nigerian students from war-torn Sudan in the desert on their way to safety in Egypt has been temporarily solved and their journey continued in earnest.
The students appeared to have taken their destiny in their hands by surrendering their passports to the drivers.
According to one of the stranded students on Twitter on Thursday, Imran J Umar, the students had to take the collective decision when they found out that no help was coming from either the Nigerian High Commission in Kkartoun or the responding agencies at home. He took to his Twitter to correct the impression given by Abike Dabiri, Chairman on Nigeria Diaspora Commission that the students had continued the journey, without offering any explanation.
Here is exchange between Umar and Dabiri on Twitter
As earlier reported by THISAGENEWS, hundreds of Nigerian students fleeing war-torn Sudan in buses sent by the government to convey them to Egypt to catch a flight to Nigeria were trapped in the desert, a few hours drive out of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum following the refusal of drivers to go any further.
This sudden turn of events was as a result of the non-payment of an agreed fee by the Nigerian government, which contacted the Sudanese logistics company to convey the stranded students across the desert to safety in Egypt.
Only yesterday, the Federal Government of Nigeria through the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama disclosed to State House Correspondents after the National Executive Council meeting on Abuja that $1.2m had been set aside to hire buses to transport the students to Egypt.
Consequently, five buses filled with the students studying at the Sudanese university set out on Wednesday, but only for the drivers to stop on get far into the desert and demanded for payment.
The Buses evacuating Nigerian students and non-students
were stopped in the middle of the Sahara, and the drivers refused to continue the journey because they’ve not been paid.
Videos of the stranded students, male and female, crying for help in the desert has gone viral on social media. Many complain of hunger and fear of attack in a strange, vast and lonely desert. They claim that the drivers told them they were acting on the instructions from the management of their company.
The number of the affected students could be between 200 and 250 as each of the buses had a capacity of 50 passengers.
In a Channels TV interview monitored by THISAGENEWS, Chairman of Nigeria Diaspora Commission, Abike Dabiri exonerated her Commission from the fiasco, adding the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, were directly involved in the matter.
Ministry officials could not be reached as at the time of filing this report.
