While Nigeria is still battling with internal issues that are begging for attention, an occurrence happened at the early part of November 2017 which called for our attention but as usual we failed as a nation and as people to respond adequately to the situation. Our response was slow and uncoordinated and it will take some genuine effort for the impression we created to be corrected especially as it concerns the government of Italy and other international observers.

It was reported that on the 7th of November 2017, a migrant inflatable dinghy conveying some Nigerian migrants and quite possibly trafficked persons drowned, killing twenty six young Nigerian women while others escape by whiskers. It was discovered these girls were on their way to Italy in search of the “greener pasture” before they met their untimely death on the sea.

This mishap elicited reactions from people all over the world. Here in Nigeria the only reaction was that the Presidency sets up a committee to investigate the cause of the incident, weeks after the deaths and the Italian government organized a funeral for the deceased  26 girls. This is a tacit waste of time as the cause of the accident is known, it is also distasteful because our government is notorious for never following up on the recommendations of the committees it institutes to research issues.

In a sane situation, the federal government would have sent embassy representatives to make an interim report of the incidence in a 24hr maximum, retrieve as much information of the victims as possible and arrange for a workable process to retrieve their bodies for repatriation and a proper state funeral.

But as usual with our insensitive system, all we could do was watch from afar. The government till date has not released the names of the affected individuals. Their family members are not aware of the incidence as they were only referred to as 26 girls except two of them that had their family members as survivors.

Nigeria and its representatives were absent from the burial, an enquiry made to the SSA to the President on Foreign affairs Honourable Abike Dabiri by a twitter user about the incident was greeted with the ‘we will investigate it’ statement which is more of a maxim for Nigeria and its incompetence.

Nigeria just leaves you in a constant state of despair.

Editor