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•Tells Nigerian youths: Don’t embark on dangerous journey
•‘Nigeria has the highest number of prostitutes in Belgium’
A post with the above title has been trending recently and causing quite a ripple and seriously raised eye brows amongst the Nigerian Diaspora community and equally from some concerned groups and individuals in the Nigerian international polity sphere. Some assert that this is quite an unfair exaggeration, and can not be proven by the gentleman who made this assertion and calculated to cast aspersion on an African community in Belgium that is fully intergrated in the Kingdom of Belgium system and they have endeavoured to achieve in any other part of the world they have found themselves. Another group have declared their intention to partner with the relevant and involved Belgium organisations to locate the supposed Nigerians sleeping in the streets and direct them in the necessary official process of documentation and eventual intergration if necessary into the Belgium system.
The disperation contents of this post this newspapers believe is a call for the government of Nigeria to do the necessary to control the flow of the best and brightest of the land from practically fleeing their Fatherland to place where they are treated and regarded as lower citizens of the world, to lands with extremely inclement weather where they have to sadly sleep in the streets. The irony being that some of these Nigerians are folks who have quite tolerable lives in their country but have to leave only to climb down the social ladder to scrounge in far away foreign lands, doing jobs they wouldnt touch with a long stick in the land of their birth, so as to make ends meet.
During the sent forth visit of the board members of the Belgium Luxembourg Nigeria Chamber of Commerce to the last ambassador of the Ferderal Republic of Nigeria to the kingdom of Belgium, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and The European Union, His Excellency Obinna Onowu, he had muted on this statement bu certain officers of the government of Belgium, in which he had Challenged them to show evidence of the presence of such Nigerians in the streets, but non was produced. So for this to continue is quite unaffair.
Concerning the prostitutes, The Scope News will stand to carry out further and stronger investigation on this before presenting our report on this. It is obvious that concerted efforts have been made from Nigeria to Belgium to curb this age old trade and a considerable success has been made. But …
Hereunder is the report of the Belgium Director General in the office of Foreigners, Mr Freddy Roosemont
The Belgium government says Nigeria has the highest number of prostitutes in the country, saying many of them are sleeping in extremely cold weather among other illegal migrants in the country.
Director General, Office of Foreigners, Belgium, Mr. Freddy Roosemont, disclosed this at the weekend while speaking to journalists in Abuja.
Speaking on those desperate to travel abroad under what Nigerians call JAPA, Roosemont pleaded with the media to help educate Nigerian youths not to be deceived by hungry traffickers who promise to offer them jobs in Europe. The official said: “Nigerian youths need to know that the dream to go to Europe especially Belgium is not realistic. It is a very dangerous journey.
“Their humanity will be taken away from them and they will end up in there and that’s why you have to inform your public, the people of Nigeria, the youth of Nigeria that things like that are still going on in Europe and in Belgium”.
He stressed that most dreams of a better life in Europe are just fake as it is not easy to survive there, insisting that the economic meltdown is a global phenomenon.
According to him, the number of asylum seekers in Belgium has risen to 150.
Roosemont advised prospective irregular migrants to Europe to bury their dream as there is no more golden fleece in Europe, adding, “Those dreams are fake, they are not realistic at all.
“It’s not easy to survive in Europe without a decent job and without sort of being an employee or employed by a university. The dream is fake”.
The official warned that coming to Belgium to seek asylum would not also work as there is a low chance of obtaining a resident permit.
“So, at the moment, we have to limit the reception of asylum seekers only to people who are vulnerable and that means families, women with children. No man alone, not in that group.
“So, for the moment, there are lots of these asylum seekers living in Brussels on the street, and I can assure you the temperature in Brussels is not what it is here in Abuja. It got to minus seven, minus five. Now it’s around zero Celsius.
“So it’s not easy to survive in Brussels without help, without assistance.
“We are by law obliged to give that assistance but we simply can’t do it because places are filled up or simply filled up. It’s a very painful situation for Belgium, but it’s like that if you look at the newspapers, if you look at the journals, if you walk in the streets in Brussels, you’re going to see everywhere, people sleeping on the streets and people trying to survive without any help”.
