Following the report that Nigerians leaving Sudan are stranded in the desert, President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the immediate deployment of both human and financial resources towards their evacuation.
The president directive followed an alarm raised by Nigerian students that they were left stranded in the middle of Sahara Desert by buses evacuating them from Sudan.
The evacuees were seen in a viral video lamenting that the drivers of the five buses conveying them to neighbouring Egypt from conflict-ridden Sudan stopped abruptly in the desert claiming that a directive from the logistics company indicated that the Nigerian government was yet to fully pay for the services.
The development caused an outrage on social media but the Director General of the Nigeria in Diaspora Commission Abike Dabiri in a tweet claimed that the National Emergency Commission had settled with the motor company and the stranded students had continued with their journey.
However, a Twitter user Ahmran J Umar, countered Dabiri saying that the government was yet to settle the logistics company but the drivers of the buses continued the journey only when the stranded students offered to drop their passports as collateral.
“You are a liar, they continued because the students gave their passports to the drivers until the payment has been made,” Umar who claimed to be stranded in Sudan, claimed.