TWELVE Nigerian men rescued from forced labour in the Central African Republic have returned home, recounting harrowing experiences of abuse, including allegations of sexual assault by their Chinese employers.
The Nigerians in Diaspora Commission revealed in a statement on Saturday, noting that the chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the commission, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, received the group in Abuja on Friday.
Recall that in a video released three weeks ago, the group appealed to the Nigerian government for help, explaining that a Chinese mining company in Nigeria called Rado Central Coal Mining had taken them ten months ago to CAR for work but abandoned them in a bush without pay.
In the video, one of the men alleged that the company’s Nigerian general manager, Abdul-Almaruf Ademola Aregbe, returned to Nigeria shortly after their arrival in CAR and showed no concern for their welfare when they reached out to him.
“His partner, Amos, a CAF citizen, seized our passport, and doesn’t want to give it to us, even though some of us here are ready to transport ourselves back to Nigeria but without our passports we can not.
“The distance from this place to Bangi is 8,050 kilometres… our location is Senye under Bambari region,” the man said in the video.
The commission said that after the video appeal, the federal government, working through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Nigerian Mission in Bangui, facilitated the workers’ relocation to the CAR capital, offered them medical care, and arranged their safe return to Nigeria.
Dabiri-Erewa denounced the abuses as inhumane and unacceptable, assuring the returnees that the government would seek justice on their behalf, the statement noted.
Speaking for the group, their leader, Igorigo Freeborn, recounted their ordeal, revealing that they suffered months of unpaid labour and sexual abuse.
“We were homosexually abused by our Chinese employers in CAR. I am not ashamed to say it. I want other people to learn from it.
“They owe us 11 months of salaries. We were treated badly there, but thank God we are alive to tell our stories,” Freeborn said.
Freeborn noted in the statement that the workers faced nearly two years of hardship after leaving Nigeria in pursuit of better opportunities.
He expressed gratitude to Nigerian government, and orther partners that facilitated their return for intervening swiftly after their situation became public.
“I used to think nothing good could come out of Nigeria, but we were so happy to receive help and succour from our own country. “Let me use this opportunity to thank President Bola Tinubu, the minister of Foreign Affairs, the CAR Ambassador in Bangui, NIDCOM, NEMA, Immigration and all those who helped.”
Nanji is an investigative journalist with the ICIR. She has years of experience in reporting and broadcasting human angle stories, gender inequalities, minority stories, and human rights issues. She has documented sexual war crimes in armed conflict, sex for grades in Nigerian Universities, harmful traditional practices and human trafficking.