>
Akinwande Soji-Ojo
The Federal Government has evacuated 542 stranded Nigerians from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM) disclosed this via its official twitter handle, @nidcom_gov, on Sunday.
“A total of 542 stranded Nigerians in the United Arab Emirates evacuated by the Federal Government arrived Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, on board the @MaxAirLtd Charted flight.
“The plane touched down at 4:29am today, October 23, 2022. The evacuees consisted 79 males, 460 females and three infants,“ the commission tweeted.
NIDCOM chairman, Mrs Abike Dabiri-Erewa, had in August said that government would evacuate the stranded Nigerians in the middle east country.
The NIDCOM boss, who spoke at a press briefing in Abuja, noted that some of the Nigerians who were profiled in the UAE neither had passports nor other means of identification.
In recent times, there has been an increase in the number of harassment cases reported by Nigerians in the UAE.
A young lady simply identified as Dun ChiChi on Twitter was recently jailed for one year by the UAE government.
The lady had posted pictures of how immigration officials in the UAE were maltreating Nigerians at the airport in Dubai on her Twitter page.