TO avoid embarrassment in the international community, the National Union of Nigerian Association in Italy, (NUNAI) has appealed to the Federal Government of Nigeria to as a matter of urgency intervene in the welfare of the embassy staff in Italy who are being owed over 14 months salaries.
The appeal which was made by Pastor Mike Ifeoluwa Oputteh, National Welfare officer of (NUNAI) also urge the Nigerian government to look at the poor condition of the embassy which was without electricity because they could not pay their bills.
According to him, “There was a time I was at the embassy, the light was disconnected from the national grid. When we did our findings, the energy company told us that our embassy was owing. This is an embarrassment to us that our embassy is owing.
“You can imagine that people are working for one year without salary and information reaching us is that three of the staff of the embassy have been ejected from their houses because they could not pay their rent again. Some got their water disconnected because they could not pay the bills.
He disclosed that the Union is disturbed because when money is not allocated to the mission in Rome, the embassy put the whole burden on Nigerians in Italy by putting extra-ordinary charges for services to be rendered to Nigerians and at the end it is the Nigerian citizens that are suffering it.
“This is the reason why we are appealing to the government to please look into this matter for us. The Chairperson of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, NIDCOM, Hon Abike Dabiri was here on the 28 of January and we made the same appeal and she promised to help us convene our message to the authority.
“We are begging the Minister of Foreign Affairs to look at the situation here because we found out that in other embassy they are not owing them this much. The embassy close to us here, the Vatican is not owing them up to five months,” he noted.
While expressing the possibility if the money has been paid and some body has diverted it somewhere, the (NUNAI) National Welfare officer said they do not know, but he emphasized that the embassy staff are going through a lot of suffering, that is why the Union is appealing to the Federal Government to please intervene to ameliorate the plight of these workers so that the burdens will not fall on Nigerians living in the country.
“We want to use this opportunity to thank Hon. Abike Dabiri, the Minister of Interior, Hon Olubunmi Tunji -Ojo and the Comptroller General of Immigration for reducing the stress of getting a passport in our comfort zone. We appreciate because this has been the major problem we are having here in Italy.
“We are also appealing most especially for every sector to please rescue this situation because if any Nigerian is having problem, even when the authority need the attention of the embassy, the embassy does not respond on time and the whole burden is always on us the leaders.
“You can imagine, the embassy that has no money to carry out a lot of function, how do you expect them to deliver good services for Nigerians in Italy. This is a very serious issue, they need money to buy stationery, to fuel the car to move around, they need money to pay telephone bills.
“The Minister of Foreign Affairs, The Central Bank governor should rise up to this occasion and look into this funding of the Nigerian Embassy here in Rome. We are begging, we need to know what is really going on, this is why you see a lot of people going to the social media saying there is lot of corruption going on in the Embassy and we cannot continue to fight corruption when there is nothing for the embassy staff to work with.
“I am not saying this is a ground for the embassy staff to involve themselves in corruption, but if they are not funded, the burden will eventually fall on the citizens here, that is why we are begging the government to come to the aid and welfare of the embassy staff,” he added.
