Azizat Omoniyi, a 21-year-old Nigerian returnee from Libya, has recounted her unfortunate experience in Libya, claiming she wasted four years of her life.
The woman from Lagos State admitted to dropping out of school when she was 17 years old and expressed regret for her actions, particularly for squandering her father’s hard-earned money.
“I will never advise anyone to think of travelling out of this country aimlessly” Azizat said on Wednesday night after landing in Lagos.
“We don’t appreciate what we have until it is lost. Anyone thinking of travelling without set and achievable objectives should forget it,’’ she said.
Azizat said her mother died while she was at a tender age and was being catered for by maternal relations, but she felt she was being maltreated and ran away to be with her father.
“From my father’s custody, a friend convinced me to meet her in Ibadan where I was introduced to the idea of travelling to Libya where I was told that I could work and receive a monthly salary of ₦120,000.
“I deceived my father that I wanted to establish a business and he gave me ₦800,000, but I used it for the Libyan trip through the desert.
“I became a slave and prostitute in Libya; I am not lying, I raised equivalent of ₦2 million as a prostitute to free myself from my trafficker.
“I want to go back to school. I stopped schooling at SS2 and have learnt my lessons,’’ she lamented.
“The lessons are very, very bitter, I wasted my life.
“I do not know my father’s location. I lost everything that I thought I could bring back home when the police raided our house and threw all of us into prison.
“We were dispossessed of our savings and property. I lost the phone in which l had my father’s contact.
“I have to wait till my transport allowance is paid before I can buy phone and try to gamble with numbers to know if I can get my father’s contact,’’ a remorseful Azizat said.
Azizat was one of 175 Nigerians who returned from Libya and arrived at Lagos’ Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMA) on Wednesday night.
92 male adults, 53 female adults, six male children, 12 female children, nine male infants, and three female infants were among the returnees.
Mr Ibrahim Farinloye, the Acting Coordinator of NEMA’s Lagos Territorial Office, told NAN in Lagos that they arrived at the airport around 9.48 p.m. on Wednesday.
According to NAN, 158 returnees from Libya had arrived five hours before Azizat’s group arrived.
The new 175 returnees, including Azizat, were stranded in Libya, according to Farinloye.
They took off on a chartered Boeing 737-400 with the registration number 5A-WAC from Mitiga International Airport in Tripoli.
They were met at the MMA’s Nigerian Aviation Handling Company wing, he claimed.
“The returnees were brought back by the International Organisation for Migration through a voluntary repatriation programme for distressed persons.
“The EU sponsored the repatriation of the stranded Nigerians who had failed in their attempt to search for greener pastures outside Nigeria,’’ he said.