Renewed Ebola fears: 150 stranded Nigerian teachers leave Sierra Leone, Liberia

About 150 stranded Nigerian
teachers in Sierra Leone, Cote
D’Ivoire and Liberia have
reportedly started escaping into
Nigeria, following the refusal of
the Federal Government to
evacuate them because of the
Ebola scourge.
But those who escaped from Ebola
infected towns and villages, have not gone for any Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) test in any hospital.

The development has created panic following the success achieved at containing the virus in the country.
Investigation confirmed that the 150 teachers were sent to Sierra Leone, Cote D’Ivoire, Liberia, and other countries in West Africa under the Nigerian Technical Aids Corps Programme, which is coordinated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The affected teachers are specialists in Mathematics, English and the sciences, and they are expected to spend two years in their countries of deployment.

According to a source,  most of the
participants in the 2012-2014 set had not been able to return on account of the Ebola scourge since mid-October, when their programme ended.

The source added that the stranded teachers were scheduled to return to Nigeria between October 15 and17.
The highly-placed source said:
“Today, no airlines ply the Freetown-Lagos routes and the teachers and science specialists, under the Federal Government programme, seem abandoned at the Ebola-ridden countries.

“These teachers had sent several
distress signals to the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs for special flight
shuttles to evacuate them, but their pleas fell on deaf ears”.

The source added: “Some of these
teachers have resorted to self-help by escaping from the Ebola infested communities through Ghana, Tunisia, and Morocco to return to Nigeria.

“Those who came back just reunited with their relations without undergoing any medical test or being  quarantined. You can see how we can be flippant in this country. We seem to have been carried away by the clean bill ofhealth given to us by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
“But a sizeable number of the
teachers are still stranded in their
host countries. The government
should save this nation from a fresh Ebola infection by evacuating these TAC teachers”.

One of the participants in the
programme, who spoke desperately on the telephone, said: “Some of our colleagues travelled to Nigeria about nine months ago. Then Ebola
broke out and started killing people. They are stranded in Nigeria. They still have their property here. Some of them have money in banks.
“We are also stranded too. We
cannot move out. As I speak to you, I can’t go to the market. I just
manage to send people to buy food stuff for me in the market to cook.

“In fairness to Nigerian embassy
officials, they talk to us once in a
while; they advised us to keep a low profile, be careful where we go and be healthy. But they keep on telling us that they are still expecting orders from the Foreign Affairs Ministry in
Nigeria”.

The participant added: “One of the
embassy officials told us that now
that Dr. Pius Olasanmi is now the
head of the Technical Aids Corps
Directorate, we will be transported back to Nigeria. But we have not heard or seen anything concrete. We
are still waiting.

“But we are now orphans in West
African countries; stranded, isolated and lonely. We don t know whether it is a curse to serve your country.
But that is what we are feeling now.
We feel abandoned by Nigeria, our
country. We feel abandoned by
President Goodluck Jonathan.
“Please help us tell President
Jonathan to send planes to West
African countries to evacuate us. We are tired of living in these Ebola countries.

“Some of us live in areas that are
two, five or eight hours to the
capitals of these countries.
“One of our colleagues called from
Sierra Leone to say that markets are just reopening and that schools closed since August till further notice.

“An ambassador in one of the
countries invited some of our
colleagues and told us that we might be evacuated before November 20. But we are not sure how this is going to work out. It appears as if they want to give us money, so we come to Nigeria by road, with all the risk of contracting Ebola along the
way on our trip home”.

“Why can’t President Jonathan direct that a plane be chartered to stop at all the capitals to transport us and then Nigerian medical workers can do further medical test on us before
we re-enter the country?

“Are our lives worthless that
government cannot charter a plane to transport us from all West African countries?” the participant queried.

Source: Nigerianeye.