By Olaleke ASHAFA
The Nigerian Ambassador to Senegal, Salisu Umaru, said on Thursday that Nigerians living in Senegal were safe and going about their private businesses without harassment from their hosts.
Umaru, who said this in Dakar, added that Nigerians in that country operated without fear of molestation.
“In terms of doing businesses and buying and selling, there are no harassments in that context.
“Once you come in and you are registered and you follow due process, nobody harasses you, and even the ECOWAS protocols covers a lot of things on movement of goods and services and humans.
“They come in, they do a lot of businesses and they freely come in there are flights daily, we have Nigeria registered air careers that come in, we have Peace Air, we have Arik.
So, they come on a daily basis and they buy and stay in their hotels, they pay their bills, they carry their goods and go.
“Police don’t harass them as long as they are operating within the law.
“But, as you know anywhere in the world if you break the law, the law takes its course, that cannot be any different.
“Generally, we don’t have any serious complaints that we have not been able to handle at this level.’’
According to Umaru, Nigerians living in Senegal have contributed to the growth of the country in different endeavours.
“There are students, there are those who are in private sector, the informal sector and there are those working in the international organisations well established institution like UN and they have been able to make their marks.
“There are Nigerians who have stayed very long time they have intermarried
`They are involved in a lot of trading, locally there are those who get involve in buying and selling in hides and skins, they transport from here to Nigeria, buy fish, dry fish, and take to Nigeria.
“And, buy also clothes, dresses, and everything, wares, Senegalese booboo is very popular in Nigeria and all these they export to Nigeria, and they import from Nigeria spare parts and so on,” he said.
He however said that some few Nigerians were in Senegalese prison serving various terms for different offences while some were awaiting trials.
“The issue is part of what we discussed in the meeting.
“We have some few Nigerians that are in prison, there are about 78 of them in number some of them are awaiting trials.
“Most of them are involved in the usual local petty activities that are not straight forward.
“So, we have intervened where necessary especially for those awaiting trials.
“But the most celebrated case is when there was a Nigerian vessel that was arrested, they entered the territorial water without authority and they were arrested and we have been working on that to see that they are released,” he said.
He said that the mission had also been of help to Nigerians living in the country in various ways, adding that the mission interface with them personally or in group.
“They have free access to the mission, in renewing their passports or identity card also they have very powerful union through which they relate with the mission.
“Some people come in that they are stranded and this is consular issue, we make sure that Nigerians stranded and others in need are taken care of by the mission.
“Some Nigerians that are deceases and will want to take the corpse back home and they are no able to do that the mission always assist them,” he said.
