Edo Receives 3,883 Libya Returnees in 10 Months

Adibe Emenyonu

The Edo State Government thursday disclosed that it has received a total of 3,883 Libya returnees from November 2017 to August 2018.

The disclosure was contained in a one-year report on the activities of the state Taskforce Against Human Trafficking which was made available to journalists in Benin-city.

The document which stated that the returnees came in 34 different batches from the last quarter of 2017 till date, added that all the returnees have been profiled and registered in the data base of the taskforce.

In the document, the task force noted that 415 of the returnees have been trained on various vocations/skills to make them useful to the society, adding that a total amount of N60.2 million has been expended by the taskforce on the payment of three months stipend to the returnees.

“The payment is usually made to different categories of returnees in the following order: N20, 000 for single returnees, N25, 000 for pregnant returnees and N10, 000 for children.

“The first verification exercise was conducted on December 22, 2017, and the sun of N10.5 million was paid out to returnees in the state as first stipend.

“Following the second verification exercise on January 9, 2018, the sum of N31.7million was again paid as stipend to these returnees.

“Then, after the third verification exercise April 26, 2018, a total sum of N17. 9 million was paid out as stipend.

“This brings the total sum to N60, 170,000 that has been paid out as stipends to the returnees. However, the payment of stipend is still ongoing,” it stated.

The taskforce also stated that it has made some inroad in reported cases of human trafficking and related matters.

While noting that four cases have been charged to court while two are ready for arraignment, it stated that one of the cases has been transferred to NAPTIP.

The document further stated that 28 cases were currently under investigation while four cases have been kept in view.

While commending the state House of Assembly for the passage of the Edo State Trafficking in Persons and Prohibition Law, the taskforce said it is not relenting on its advocacy and sensitisation programmes.