Not less than 4,000 Nigerians from across the world needing evacuation in the face of the ravaging COVID-19 pandemic, The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Geoffery Onyeama, has said.
The minister said that securing the bed spaces for the isolation of the Nigerians when brought home had been a major constraint.
Onyeama was fielding questions from journalists at the daily news briefing by the Presidential Task Force (PTF) in Abuja.
He said that the lack of bed spaces to isolate the evacuees is the major challenge that the government is grappling with.
Although the minister had told journalists last week that the first set of evacuees from the United Arab Emirate will arrive the country on May 4th, he explained that measures are being put in place to see that the evacuation exercise commences latest on Wednesday 6th of May.
According him, the Federal Government is making arrangements to bring home about 300 Nigerians from UK utilising the opportunity of British Ai3flight coming to evacuate Britons in Nigeria.
He noted that the government was in the process of repatriation of Nigerians abroad who were willing to return and Emirates Airline had indicated interest to bring them back to Nigeria.
The minister stressed that the airline would operate on May 6, to bring Nigerians abroad back to the country
