Xenophobia: Ex-US army officer counsels Buhari on returnees

President Muhammadu Buhari has been urged to make adequate preparation to engage hundreds of Nigerians being repatriated from South Africa to avoid compounding the mounting security challenges in the country.

Sunday Adebomi, a retired Captain in the United States of America (USA) Army, gave the counsel in a statement made available to the Nigerian Tribune on Thursday.

Lauding the resolve of the Federal Government to rescue Nigerians from troubled and hostile countries, especially in the face of the rising xenophobic attacks in South Africa, he, however, said such effort would be meaningless if no proper arrangement was made to engage the returnees productively.

Adebomi also urged the president to impress it on members of his cabinet to, as a matter of urgency and necessity, design programmes that would create more space for the youths in their respective ministries.

The former US army captain and a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress(APC) in Ekiti State, also charged Buhari to demand current and adequate data of Nigerians living in foreign countries to enable the government to monitor and account for their well being.

“Nigerians did not deserve the fate being meted out to their by the supposed allied nations in recent times. But I must salute the courage of President Buhari in rising to the occasion on the challenge. Mr President must take further steps in ensuring that the returnees are not brought back to a hopeless situation.

“I think the present government has the capacity to do this by making it a policy thrust. The ministers must be given a marching order to design and formulate policies which would create more space for the youths in their respective ministries.

“There must be adequate preparation to absorb them into a productive enterprise. More importantly, now that the nation is facing serious security issues, the government must not toy with the danger of abandoning the returnees to their fate.

“This is the time to prove to the whole world that Nigeria is capable of taking care of her citizens. The way the government treated the returnees would determine whether others facing threats in other countries would be willing to return home,” he said.