It has been reported that no fewer than twenty thousand, one hundred and ninety-seven Nigerians stranded in various countries have voluntarily returned to their homeland.
This is according to data collated from various repatriation exercises facilitated by the International Organisation for Migration.
The stranded Nigerians returned to their country under the IOM’s Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration programme, which involved intervention from the Federal Government and various Nigerian missions abroad.
Women and girls constitute nearly eighty-eight per cent of the returnees, while men account for thirteen per cent.
One of the reports read that the stranded Nigerian migrants returned home from transit and destination countries along the Mediterranean irregular migratory route.
A former spokesperson for the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, Zakaria Dauda, said although most returnees aborted their journeys to return to the safety of their home country, some were only marking time before venturing out again.
