The Max Air Plane conveying 415 Nigerian students from Romania touched down at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja at 7.10 am on Friday, March 4, 2022.
The House of Representatives Majority Leader, Alhassan Ado Doguwa, the Chairman, House Committee of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Buba and the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs led the return of the students from Romania.
The students underwent profiling and Covid19 test at the airport and were given refreshments and stipends to facilitate their transportation to their destinations.
Parents of some of the returned students were also on the ground to receive their children and wards.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Gabriel Aduda told newsmen that the Federal Government was in talks with countries around Ukraine for final year students of medicine to continue with their studies in those countries since the curriculum was similar to that of Ukraine.
He said three more planes, two from Poland and one from Budapest were expected to bring more Nigerian students from those nations to Nigeria.
According to Gabriel Aduda, about one thousand Students out of the over five thousand, six hundred who crossed over to neighbouring countries are expected in Nigeria today.
He said those without their passports due to the emergency situation in Ukraine, would be issued certificates in the interim.
The Permanent Secretary explained that over three hundred Nigerian students were trapped in Sumi, Ukraine but efforts were on to provide a safe corridor for them to move to Russia for eventual evacuation to Nigeria.
Some of the students who decried the delay by the Nigerian government in responding to their distress situation, however, commended the government for the eventual evacuation which they said was hitch-free.
According to some of them including Charles Njoku, Kadija Mohammed and Miracle John, all medical students, the federal government provided good hotels and meals while in Romania, onboard the plane and on arrival in Abuja.
The Director-General of the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, and officials from the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons, National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, NAPTIP, received the evacuated students on arrival, at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja.
PIAK
