The evacuation of Nigerians from Sudan after many attempts is another blight on our Nation.The I’ll —planned evacuation also led to untoward outcomes occasioned by many lapses.
Firstly, The question should be, who should be in charge of evacuations in war zones,Should it be only NEMA or various agencies working together.I dare ask, what was the interagency relationship like as the planning for the evacuation started.It is sad that the military and intelligence agencies were never involved in this planning, only NEMA was made to dialogue with the drivers in Sudan—I ask what if they had kidnapped our students, who did the security checks?, was there collaboration with the Embassy on ground, if so why did the Ambassador release an audio blaming NEMA.
Secondly, it is easy to blame Egypt but did President call his Egyptian opposite number before the students were evacuated, who was suppose to brief the president about this high-level diplomatic call, What intelligence guided the decision to proceed to the Egyptian border despite the bottlenecks, I presume the National Assembly will ask these questions soon.
lastly, How was money spent, How much did NEMA finally pay? What was the contractual agreement with the bus company and NEMA and why did the drivers hold the students ransom?NEMA claimed more money was needed so where are all the receipts of money spent on the exercise.
Going forward, it is incumbent on Nigeria to set up an holistic guideline/ rule book for these evacuations.This must lean heavily on interagency relationships and carefully guided decision making processes.
