(Opinion) The India chronicles that points to a conspiracy

By Gbade Akanbi, in India
In the past two to three days, the social media has been getting flooded with the news about the suffering of stranded Nigerians in India who are anxiously waiting to be evacuated home. A careful observation and analysis of the whole situation appears to be like chronicles that point to a conspiracy against the evacuation of these people.
Three events emerged that tends to confirm that there is a Conspiracy against the evacuation of these Nigerians from India to Nigeria.
The first event was the issue of payment for hotel accommodation to be used for quarantine in Nigeria. This was not part of the original plan for the May 17 departure date.
However, as the evacuees were struggling to go about this sudden request for them to pay for hotel accommodation before they can board the flight, help came from the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) which both promised to foot the bill as part of their CSR! This appeared not to have gone down well with certain elements at the helm of affairs. So, the flight scheduled for May 17 was cancelled and postponed to May 31! What a disappointment!!!
The second event that pointed to a conspiracy against the evacuation of these Nigerians was the decision made a few days before May 31. The decision stated that there would be no need to be quarantined in hotels (so, nobody knows what happened to the gracious offer of NNPC & CBN) but those coming in to the country must have a Covid-19 test from the country they are coming from and can quarantine at their respective homes after being tested at the airport and surrendering their International Passports. Okay, the evacuees agreed and went to do Covid test within the time frame given by the Nigeria High Commission in Delhi.
Meanwhile, the flight departure was changed from May 31 to June 4 with an assurance from the Foreign Affairs Ministry that the evacuees in India were on priority list.
Third episode: as the evacuees were waiting to depart on June 4, another message came from Nigeria that June 4 was no longer feasible because of a new protocol (which was not made explicit anyway) and therefore all evacuations have been suspended.
This decision to suspend all evacuations came on the same day that Air Peace brought 312 Indians from Lagos to India! And what was the reason for the suspension? That a new protocol (which nobody except the Coordinator of Covid-19 PTF knows) is in place but the medical personnels said they were not ready. What is this new protocol Mr. Coordinator?
Does anyone need to be versed in astrophysics to understand that there is a conspiracy against the evacuation of these Nigerians from India?
Several questions are begging for answers from the Nigerian government especially the PTF on Covid-19, the Foreign Affairs Ministry, and the Nigeria High Commission in Delhi:
1. Who is afraid of allowing the evacuees from India to return to their motherland/fatherland?
2. Has any of the evacuees offended anyone in the above three units of government? And is someone in government using this evacuation process to deliberately punish and frustrate certain individuals among the evacuees?
3. Why is it that whenever a departure date was set for the evacuation of these Nigerians from India, an order stopping the same process emanates from the government just a few days or hours to the departure time? Could it be that someone somewhere is just playing a script that had been written prior to the unfolding of these events? The wise saying “two or three witnesses establishes a matter” aptly applies here.
4. What happened to the decision by NNPC & CBN to fund the use of hotels for quarantine and why was it suddenly terminated?
5. Now that the evacuees have done their Covid-19 test in India within the time frame given by the Nigeria High Commission, what is going to happen? Has that effort gone to a waste including the expenses incurred by individuals? And by the way, the cost of these tests were borne on behalf of the evacuees by some kindhearted Indians who were moved by the suffering of their fellow human beings. While the Indians have demonstrated love for Nigerians in India, their own brothers/sisters in government chose to abandon them. God bless these Indians!
6. Why was it that Air Peace could not pick the evacuees from India to Nigeria on June 1 after dropping the Indians? Your guess is as good as mine on behalf of Air Peace – they were not given the authority to do so despite the fact that the evacuees were ready? If Air Peace had the authorization, the Nigeria High Commission could have simply changed the date of their application for evacuation. The High Commission did not have the directive to do so either. The Nigeria High Commission applied for landing permit from the Government of India for Air Peace to drop Indians but was not given the authority to do the same for her own citizens because of the decision by Abuja.
7. Why is it that the management of Covid-19 in Nigeria has been handed over to a group consisting of politicians? They are the ones that do all the decision making and briefings. A lot of seasoned Nigerian epidemiologists at home and abroad who could have helped in managing this pandemic appear to have been sidelined.
8. And by the way, why was the Senate Committee on Diaspora not involved in this whole exercise of the evacuation of Nigerians from India? Are we no longer in a democratic government?
9. Yesterday’s tweet by the Hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs stated that only the PTF Coordinator can decide on when the evacuation will commence. What a statement! Does it mean that the PTF Coordinator is the only one to decide the fate of these Nigerians suffering in a foreign land? Are the evacuees now at his mercy? Is he really in touch with reality? Why is it so difficult for the Foreign Affairs Minister to convince the Coordinator about the plight of suffering Nigerians in India? And what is the PTF Chairman doing?
10. Some Nigerians even have the gut to be asking the question – who sent the evacuees to India in the first place? What a foolish question? Anyway, the answer is simple – the Nigerian government sent them to India because they could not provide quality medical services to Nigerians. The Nigerian government sent them to India because they could not provide quality and sufficient educational institutions for their University education. The Chairman of COVID PTF Mr. Boss Mustapha, who is also the Secretary to the Federal Government recently confirmed this by decrying the poor state of medical institutions and facilities in Nigeria and saying he never knew it was that bad. Yes, Nigerian government sent them to India because the government officials were always flying abroad to treat the simplest health problem while neglecting the hospital infrastructure in Nigeria. Imagine, in a whole country of 200 million people and after 60 years of Independence, plus abundant natural resources in Nigeria, there is no single hospital with PET scan facility to confirm some cancer tests. Why will they not go to India? And for the purpose of emphasis, these evacuees are not asking for free evacuation! They have already paid exorbitant amount of about N600,000 per head to travel by Air Peace. They have done their Covid-19 test in India as required by the government, and they are Nigerians. So, why shouldn’t they be allowed to go back home? They didn’t go to India to live permanently. They are operating within the ambits of their fundamental human rights.
The one request of the stranded Nigerians in India is one – airlift us to Nigeria this week (before June 8 because they’ve been waiting since May 17)!
God bless you. God bless Nigeria! God bless India!