By Ishola Adeleke and Okereke Udoakpuenyi, YeyeNews.com, September 26, 2021
Nigeria will become the second African country, after Uganda, to accept refugees from Afghanistan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs through its spokesperson disclosed to the media that the government of President Muhammadu Buhari has made arrangements to accept at least 15,000 refugees from Afghanistan.
YeyeNews.com learned that many of the refugees were reluctant to come to Nigeria and some flatly declined the offer initially but they became excited with the prospect after some of them reached out to research life in Nigeria. A source said that these researchers reached out to the Lebanese and Lebanese-Nigerian Council (LaLNC).
According to this source, the Afghans were told Nigeria was a sweet place to live in, that so many Nigerians thought of anyone of our color as a white person or Caucasian. “They will call you white man, treat you with great respect, give you big contracts and fling open for you the doors to big government offices. You will make a lot of money and move around with military. Your skin color will open doors for you”, the Lebanese source said the Afghans were told.
LaLNC, the source said, categorically told the Afghan group: “You should come to Nigeria immediately.”
Another Lebanese told the prospective refugees that they would have nothing to worry about in terms of cultural shock or adjustment, that “Nigeria is already a Muslim country and you wont have anything to worry about. You can even marry more than one wife unlike in America.” They were also told that people like them would not be bound by harsh Sharia as the law was for the poor and black Nigerians: “Remember you are a white man in Nigeria and you can drink any amount of alcohol as you want and this country has so many breweries.”
Yeyenews.com also learned from a source in the Nigeria Immigration Service that a businessman in Enugu is already lobbying top immigration officials to make him the sole handler and manager of the Afghan refugees. A source told our reporter that the businessman wants to go into the business of renting out the refugees to companies looking for government contracts to help them secure the jobs. The source said this is because the “people who are connected to Enugu State, some other states and local and federal governments, MDAs have a positive attitude and view of a company if the company is applying for contract with an ‘oyibo’ as an expert partner.”
Whether the ‘oyibo expert’ has any skills or not does not matter, the source clarified. The Enugu business is already positioning to be the sole supplier of oyibos to government contract-seeking companies all over Nigeria, the source added.
