Ebun Francis || Nigeria on Monday kicked against the hasty burial of 26 girls found dead on the Mediterranean Sea and have demanded explanations from the Italian Government.
Abike Dabiri-Eruwa, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, expressed the federal government dis[leasure in an interview with newsmen in Abuja.
According to her, the Italian embassy had earlier informed the National Agency for Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), that the women would be buried take place on November 26 in Salerno, Italy.
She, however, said contrary to information provided by the Italian Embassy, the girls were buried nine days before the scheduled date.
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.”
She further condemned the “hasty burial of the women”, saying adequate information and proper enlightenment were necessary to avoid a re-occurrence.
The special assistant to President Buhari on diaspora issue further 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 traffick 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 concluded.