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Jonathan’s Foreign
Campaigners Stranded In
Nigeria By
Chuks Ehirim
Newsdiaryonline Sat Oct 8,2011
Almost six months after
the April 2011 general elections,
some Nigerians in diaspora who worked for
the electoral success of
President Goodluck Jonathan, are now stranded in the country,
without any hope of raising money
to go back to where they were living. Some of the stranded
persons are those based in
Vienna,
Austra, who operated on the auspices of the Concerned Nigerians
Network, whose leader, Prince Erubuoye
James, is now facing a
threat of being evicted from his hotel in
Abuja
because he could no longer pay his bills.
James who is the
Co-ordinator of the group, told our correspondent that he and
other members of his team have
become stranded in Nigeria. ‘’We campaigned
all over
Europe
for President Goodluck Jonathan and later
came back to Nigeria to
work for his victory but since after
the election, we have
become stranded here, almost at
the point of being evicted from our hotels here in
Abuja’’, he said.
The group, he explained,
had, in a letter dated 13 May, 2011,
requested for an audience with President Jonathan. The
request was granted via
a letter dated 15 July, 2011 and signed by I. O. Elegbede[Director,
Office of the Chief of Staff,
for Chief of Staff to the President, Commander-In-Chief]. The
letter captioned Re: Request for courtesy call, reads
in part, ’’I write to
acknowledge receipt of your letter dated 13th May, 2011 and to
inform you that the President has
directed the Chief of Staff to receive in audience on
his behalf on 19th July,
2011, at 11.00 hours, in the Chief
of Staff’s office, State House’’.
The co-ordinator explained however,
that when he met with
the President’s Chief of Staff
Chief Mike Ogiadomen, on
the said appointed day, he and his other colleague, came out of
the meeting thoroughly disappointed.
According to him, ‘’when we raised the issue of financial
assistance at least to enable us defray some of the costs of our
stay here and go back to Austria, the Chief
of Staff told us that
the President is broke and so cannot
help us with finance’’.
He added that other
requests the group made, especially that bordering on the plight
of Nigerian in Austra, most
of who are subjected to inhuman treatments and human rights
abuses, were equally turned down by Chief Ogiadome, who told
them he has no sympathy for those of them who left
the shores of Nigeria in
search of greener pastures overseas.
‘’He said he has no pity for those of us who chose to
stay outside the
country. He also told us that Nigeria is good place where
anybody could stay in and make his millions
in a matter of weeks’’,
James said.
Meanwhile, the group
which operates as a Non Governmental Organization [NGO], has
been having a running battle with
the Austrian authorities
over the maltreatment of Nigerians
in the country. Most of
the cases have to do with ‘Nazist
disposition’ of
Austrians towards Nigerians many of who have
lost their lives as a
result. In one of the Nazi-related assaults, a member of the
group was said to have been stripped naked by the Austrian
police who equally shot him in the
leg. The matter was taken to court by the group but everything
is being done by the authorities there, to deny
the victim justice.
The group’s co-ordinator
said that since their arrival back home in Nigeria, efforts have
been made to draw the attention
of the Nigerian Government to it, through the
Ministry of Foreign
Affairs but nothing concrete has been
done to give the matter
the response it deserves.
According to him,
following the report the group made to
the Minister of Foreign
Affairs,Olugbenga Ashiru, the Permanent
Secretary in the Ministry, Ambassador Martin
Uhomoibhi, was directed
by the Minister, to summon the Austrian
Ambassador to Nigeria and confront him with the allegations of
inhuman treatment of Nigerians in his country. Over a month
after this Ministerial directive was
given, the Perm Sec. is
yet to carry it out.
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