Authorities in Nigeria have rejected claims of ethnic discrimination during the evacuation of its citizens who were stuck in Sudan.
This comes after a viral video in which one of the stranded Nigerians in Sudan claimed that some of them were excluded from the evacuation due to their ethnicity.
The Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), however, refuted the ethnic claims, calling them “divisive and ridiculous” in a statement on Tuesday.
The NIDCOM spokesperson, Abdur-Rahman Balogun, reported that all individuals who gathered at the designated areas were picked up and transported in 40 buses either to Port Sudan or to the Egyptian border.
He claimed that women, children, and students received priority treatment and were called according to their states in alphabetical order, starting with the state of Abia in the southeast.
“If some arrived after the stipulated time or did not show up at the point of pick up, they can’t blame it on anyone,” Balogun said.
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and the Minister of foreign affairs, NIDCOM, have been invited to testify before the House of Representatives to discuss the progress of Nigerians’ evacuation from Sudan.