The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) received 129 Nigerians stranded at Agadez, Niger Republic, on Saturday in Kano.

NEMA Coordinator, Kano Territorial Office, Nuradeen Abdullahi, gave the figure when he received the returnees.

The returnees arrived in Kano in three luxury buses organised by the International Organisation on Migration.

“The returnees were brought back through a voluntary repatriation programme for those who left Nigeria to seek greener pastures in various European countries but could not get to their destinations and became frustrated,” Mr Abdullahi said.

The coordinator added that the returnees included 125 male, two female and two toddlers. According to him, the returnees are from different parts of Nigeria; some from Kano, Gombe and Anambra states.

He added that they would be trained for four days to be self-reliant and would be given grants to start new lives.

The returnees were given toiletries and clothes and fed on arrival. One of them, Ummi Aliyu from Kano, a widow and mother of nine, said she travelled with two of her kids up to Algeria for greener pastures.

“I am a widow; that was why I left my seven other children in Nigeria to travel outside the country to get enough money to take good care of them,” she said.

Another returnee, James Kelechi from Anambra, said that he operated a medicine store before he left Nigeria also in search of greener pastures.

“My business was not moving fine; that was why I decided to travel to Italy in search of greener pastures,” he said.

(NAN)