The Senate at its plenary session of Wednesday, 29 November 2017 called on the Federal Government to protect Nigerian citizens from being auctioned as slaves in Libya and to urgently commence the process of repatriation and rehabilitation of Nigerians subject to human rights abuses in various parts of the world.
Presenting a motion titled “Urgent need to protect Nigerian Citizens from the Libya Slavery Auction “, Sen. Baba Kaka Bashir (APC: Borno) expressed dismay over the buying and selling of Nigerians at slave markets in various locations across Libya which he described as “inhuman, barbaric and a sickening crime against humanity”.
Sen. Bashir mentioned that the act of slave trade was humiliating and breached the fundamental principles of human rights. He informed Members of the Senate that no fewer than 10,000 Nigerians have died while illegally migrating through the deserts and 4,000 Nigerians deported from Libya after being intercepted while attempting to arrive the Mediterranean Sea. According to him, the Libyan Immigration Authority had stated that out of an estimated 25,500 migrants, 4,000 were from Nigeria and are being held at detention centres across the country.
The Senate’s resolution is in response to a recent report aired by a global news network on slave trade auctioning of sub-Saharan Africans in Libya. The report highlighted the plight of individuals in detention centres living in unsanitary conditions, forced into hard labour as slaves and being witnesses of seeing other migrants eventually dying from such degrading treatment.
