Simon Ebegbulem
22 June 2009
Benin — ADDITIONAL 102 Nigerians, forty five of them from Edo state, were arrested weekend by the Libyan authorities while trying to travel to Europe with fake documents.
The weekend arrest would increase the number of Edo state natives in Libyan under ground prison to almost two thousand.
It would be recalled that over one thousand five hundred natives of Edo state have been languishing in an under ground jail in Libya since March this year for committing the same offence.
The Special Adviser to Governor Adams Oshiomohle on Foreign Matters/Diaspora, Mr. Ehiozuwa Agbonayinma, had last week expressed frustrations over the attitude of the Libyan officials towards the efforts being made by both the state government and the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs in seeking the release of the Nigerians.
One of the prisoners from Edo state, Charles Erawuyi, who spoke to Vanguard on telephone, disclosed that additional 102 Nigerians were arrested weekend and that forty-five of them are from Edo state.
He added: "The problem we are having too is that the officials in the Nigerian Embassy here are making matters worse for us. What they do is to collect money individually from our relations before they will go and ask for the release of anyone instead of seeking for the release of all of us like the Kenyan Government and others did.
"They will ask for up to one fifty to two hundred dollars and most of us cannot afford it."
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My advice is that the Nigerian Edo state governor do all he can to have his citizens stop this human trafficking of girls from Edo state to Libya for prostitution as it is against the Libyan law.As of present,there are more than 120,000 young girls who could be great Nigerian ladies tomorrow, here on sex slave labour.They are the highest among the Nigerian sex workers here.Why must it be like that. The are senior citizens of Edo state here that are doing this business in cooperation with Edos in Italy,Spain and Nigeria. It is a shame for Nigeria as only Nigerian girls are found in brothels in Libya as though they are the only women from Western Africa who comes to Libya to seek greener pastures.I am writting this because it makes me too shame as a West African. I am not from Nigeria but i have Nigerian man who is married to my cousin and have children with her.Thank God they are not in Nigeria. Else,one day i could have see them here. It seem to me that no Girls children are save in Nigeria from this sexual slavery.Especially Edo State.