The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) says a total of 826 Nigerians stranded in Libya, enroute Europe, voluntarily returned from the North African country in October.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Director General of NEMA, Alhaji Mustapha Maihajja, made the disclosure while receiving a fresh batch of 270 Nigerians who arrived the country on Tuesday.
Maihajja, represented by the South West Zonal Coordinator of the agency, Alhaji Suleiman Yakubu, said the returnees were assisted back to Nigeria by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the European Union (EU).
He said that the fresh batch added to 138 Nigerians earlier brought back on Oct. 3; 257 on Oct. 24 and 161 on Oct. 26 made the total number of returnees in October 826.
The NEMA boss urged the returnees to contribute their quota to national development, stressing that the quest to build Nigeria required the support of all and sundry.
NAN reports that the new set of returnees arrived the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos at 7.30pm aboard a Libyan Airline aircraft with registration number 5A-LAU.
They comprised 216 female adults, 13 teenage girls and five infants, while the male adults were 27, 18 were teenage boys and nine, baby boys.
Other agencies which received the returnees were the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) , the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and the Police.