Ukraine-Russia war: Onyeama meets Gbaja, says evacuation of Nigerians may begin Wednesday

Geoffrey Onyeama, minister of foreign affairs, says plans are underway to commence the evacuation of Nigerians from Ukraine on Wednesday.

Onyeama spoke on Monday when he met with Femi Gbajabiamila, speaker of the house of representatives, at his office in Abuja.

The minister said there are about 8,000 Nigerians in Ukraine and some of them have been received at the Nigerian embassy in Ukraine’s neighbouring nations.

According to him, the federal government had earlier scheduled Monday for the evacuation but the date was shifted.

“The latest we heard was that Monday would not be feasible. We have tentatively fixed for Wednesday,” he said.

“Romania is going to be the hub and there are about 1,000 already estimating to pick up from Romania. Then you have Slovakia, about 200; Poland was about 250, and Hungary the same figure. About 150 want to go through Russia, which are our students that we have advised our ambassador to get permit for.

“So, essentially, that’s where we are as at today — moving into that next phase of getting these people. Of course, some of them don’t want to come back to the country, but the point is also that we’ve given a commitment to these transit countries that have given us timelines for the refugees to stay in their countries. So, we also must ensure that within that timeline, they come back.”

The minister said the invasion of Ukraine came as a surprise because Russia had earlier said there were no plans of attack.

“President Putin had said they were not going to invade. We were in touch with our ambassador there. I was on the phone with him almost every day and I said to him: ‘should we start evacuating?’ He said ‘no, everything is perfectly calm; life is going on as normal and there’s no need to panic and start evacuating’,” the minister said.

“Days later, I got back to him almost every day and there was a BBC programme where they interviewed Nigerian students. The students said everything was normal in Kyiv and other parts and they didn’t even know there was a problem and that it’s when they are on TV they know there might be something in the offing.

“So, that was the situation. Also, the Ukrainian government did not want people to panic. They wanted to show that the situation was normal and they didn’t want people to start leaving. A lot of Nigerians there are students. If they left, they would never be able to come back to carry on their studies, so they stayed.

“The missions of all the countries used to meet there regularly, with the diplomats sharing notes, and there was a consensus that they would just stay, pending when the Russians will be coming in. The Americans evacuated, the British evacuated, but almost nobody else did.”

In his remarks, Gbajabiamila said the country must always be ready to evacuate Nigerians in times of emergency.

“I think it is important that we must be in the state of readiness at all times and not be caught flat-footed at all or whatever again,” he said.

“It’s happened too many times. We need to have planes that are on the ready. We need to get all those things ready in case this should happen. We don’t pray that this happens again but we live in a world of conflict, so we need to be ready.”

The speaker asked Ado Doguwa, majority leader of the house, and Yakubu Buba, chairman of the committee on foreign affairs, to work with the ministry on the evacuation.

“These people are our constituents. You need to get your hands dirty as well. Whenever they are going, you need to be involved, irrespective of whatever anybody says out there. This is a collaborative effort; government is about everybody,” he said.

“The foreign ministry will take charge, but you oversight. That’s what our law says. We need to be sure that things are done properly.”

Gbjabiamila added that the ministry can collaborate with Air Peace to ensure the evacuation is done as soon as possible.

“I spoke with the chairman of Air Peace a couple of days ago and he did tell me he is ready and more than able to airlift our citizens,” the speaker said.

“He has about eight planes at his disposal — from 300 to 400-seater planes.

“He basically said he is willing as soon as we are ready. For the house, one day is a day too long in terms of delay.”