The Muhammadu Buhari led Federal Government has condemned the hasty burial of 26 girls found dead on the Mediterranean Sea and demanded explanations from the Italian Government.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, Mrs Abike Dabiri-Erewa, said this on Monday during an interview with reporters in Abuja.
She said: “We all know that these girls are sold as slaves and this is something that should be unacceptable to the whole world.”
“We cannot go back to the dark era where human beings are sold as slaves. The UN, EU, African Union must intervene, this is a world problem. We are not going back and we are not accepting that.”
Mrs Abike Dabiri-Erewa said the Italian embassy had earlier informed that the women would be buried take place on November 26 in Salerno, Italy.
She, however, said contrary to what the Italian Embassy had told the National Agency for Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), the girls were buried nine days before the scheduled date.
She further condemned the “hasty burial of the women”, saying adequate information and proper enlightenment were necessary to avoid a re-occurrence.
The President’s aide also decried the rising trend of engaging human as slaves in western countries, an act she described as going back to the ‘dark era’.
She said, “It is easier now to traffic human beings than to traffick drugs because with the technology, we are getting to know who carries drugs. So this is the next line of business and this is something that the world must rise up to, which brings me to the issue of slavery.”
“And Nigeria, being the giant of Africa, we are going to champion the rights of these girls; even an illegal migrant has rights.
“If there is no demand, there is no supply. So while we on our end ensure that we do everything to curtail the supply, they on their end demanding are just as guilty,” Dabiri-Erewa added.