 You're welcome back. It's still the breakfast on Plus TV Africa and we're being joined by Mr. Adebayo Oluwake. He will be talking to us on a very, very sensitive issue, if you may, because we're finding IDPs in our country and then we're finding people that we need to ferry back home from foreign lands that are war-torn right now. A case in point is Sudan. So we want to look at some of the challenges that are being faced by the people themselves and by governments that are trying to evacuate their people. Mr. Adebayo Oluwake is a Consulting Research Fellow, African Resource Development Center here in Lagos. Good morning and welcome to the program, sir. Good morning and good morning. Thank you for having me on the viewers. Okay. Yeah. Well, let's kickstart with some of the challenges that are being faced when you're trying to evacuate people from another country because one of the problems we've had is paperwork, as our diaspora commission has told us, a minister of foreign affairs has told us, about why the delay in evacuating the people from Sudan and some of them are stranded at the borders and all that. So many stories coming up. But we need to have an insight to some of these challenges, bureaucratic bottlenecks or diplomatic challenges that need to be solved before this kind of evacuation takes place in any country with your experience working with the Red Cross. Thank you. Okay. But today I'm speaking in my personal capacity. Yeah. And yes, you asked a very pertinent question. In many, most of us are conflict environments. Even if you have a major disaster, what we might call a complex emergency, there would be, it would throw up a lot of challenges. You have to get people out of Hamsway. You may have to turn to those who have been injured right from the location because they cannot move. And then of course, if you have to move people, in the case of an armed conflict, you need the authorization of those who control territory. Okay. And I think this is one of the things that a lot of people didn't completely understand when they started talking about the urgency that was required to move people out. If you do not have the authorization of those who control territory, either the armed groups or the conventional or state military forces that control territory, you cannot move anyone. It's decided to try to move anyone. Then it also depends on the mode of transportation of those that you want to move. If you're going to move them by air, you need an, you need authorization as well. You need an air corridor allocated for your aircraft, you know, and all that. So, so many protocols to go through. And I think as well that in the case of what has happened in this span, even though we could have predicted that something like this could happen, given the dynamics of the Sudanese situation, the country that's been at war for almost, I don't know how long, you know, on and off. But that conflict in the Sudan or those conflicts, because there were a few conflicts, you know, happening side by side, never actually got to Khartoum. Khartoum was relatively safe. And I think this was also what might have veered many governments into a false sense of security and a lot of Sudanese themselves. That since Khartoum has been, you know, relatively unaffected, except for the revolution that brought down Mashal Bashir, you know, when there were a couple of firefights in Khartoum. Khartoum had always been relatively untouched. So that might have veered some states into a false sense of confidence that Khartoum will not be affected. And then lastly, when Khartoum was finally affected, we saw that it was sudden. You know, there were two allies who had been working together who suddenly fell apart. And then we saw the crisis on that day. So in that, in that kind of, so that's one, one, one, perhaps that's the background. Okay. Now, when you are moving people out, some people will not want to leave. There are some countries that are always proactive, you know, the issue what they call travel advisories or the issue security warnings to their citizens. Now, you find us on citizens ignoring, even when they are asked to either leave or to move, they ignore it, right? But of course, when you have the kind of scenario you had in Khartoum, everybody wants to leave. And then you have to now know where they are. You have to be able to reach them. And as I have said in one or two other fora, my experience with most of our citizens in a few countries, especially African countries that have worked is that most of our citizens do not like to register with the Nigerian embassy for whatever reason. Okay, I don't want to start throwing it to that. But the truth remains that if you are in some countries that are prone to say violence or conflict or countries where you have an active hostility taking place, it is only common sense. I mean, common sense requires that you must register with your embassy. If you take Nigeria, for example, we've had the Boko Haram insurgency. We've had banditry and kidnapping. Many foreign nationals in Nigeria, as of necessity, will register with their embassies. It is mandatory. Because if, okay, we are not praying for that. And I think Nigeria is fairly maybe much more stable compared to Sudan and the rest. But should in case something goes terribly wrong, the embassy must know how many people need to be evacuated, their geographical distribution and the means of getting them to assemble in a specific place. So those are some of the challenges that you would have if you have to evacuate people in a conflict environment. Well, thank you for giving us that background information. And as our topic is mental health consequences of fleeing conflict zones, tell us is mental health welfare part of the things that should be considered in dealing with refugees and is it part of what they consider in dealing with refugees from your experience? Absolutely. I mean, it's a very pertinent question. And you see the problem with the challenge with this particular phenomenon is that those whom it affects often don't know that they've been affected. You know, you have post-traumatic stress disorder, although I'm not an expert, but of course we, some of us worked in such environments and we were exposed, you know, to those kinds of phenomenon. So phenomenon, sorry. So you would find that people who have been traumatized in the course of, for example, bombardments, okay, a lot of people talk about conflict. Some people even when they're having disagreements, they say, ah, we have to fight. They are saying none of that because they have not seen armed conflict. When you witness armed conflict, you don't pray for it. Okay. Bombardments alone, even when they're far away from where you are located, they can have serious traumatic impact on whoever is affected, you know, shootings and they're not to talk of seen, maybe dead bodies, people or people, not even dead bodies, some people whose body parts have been dismembered by the violence, you know. These always have traumatic impact on people and therefore, or maybe your friend goes out to buy something and never came back and you never knew if he or she was alive or dead, you know. So all of these things impact people and their mental health is affected and definitely in the evacuation process or in the management of displaced persons or refugees, the question of their mental health should always be of utmost priority. Okay. Let's talk about policy because in Nigeria, we have IDPs. We have people who even though they're not fleeing other countries, they are fleeing their ancestral lands and being placed in IDP camps. These people who are coming from Sudan and the ones who came from Ukraine and all that, who have come somewhere, maybe outside the country and all that is the same thing. But the next government that is coming needs to be deliberate about policies and what kind of policies do you think can be put in place to make sure that processes like this of taking care of people in the IDP camps or bringing people back home and all other things that relate to moving, forcefully moving where you're supposed to be to another place of temporary abode. What kind of policies do you think should be put in place to make that seamless? In terms of policy, I think Nigeria has, I think we have very good policies. Over the years, most governments we have had, you know, have had very good policies. The disaster management policy in Nigeria, for instance, I think is one of the best anywhere. And we have structures on the ground, you know. And you have NEMA, for instance, the National Emergency Management Agency. You have the Nigerian Red Cross, which is an auxiliary to the Nigerian state, as in other countries, in the management of emergencies. And they are present in all the local governments in Nigeria. And they have volunteers all over the country. So if you, and then you have the armed forces who have specific capabilities. And then you have some construction companies who have certain heavy-lift equipment. So in terms of policy and in terms of apparatus or apartheid, I think Nigeria has, internally, we have very good policies. I think the challenge for us is always coordination and cohesion. And I have seen now that even in the management of our citizens trapped in the Sudan, in my view, I think coordination could have been better, especially in terms of information management. First of all, who to contact, where the person is, and then who speaks publicly, you know, to Nigerians and to the international community about what our citizens are going through and the processes that we are undertaking to bring them back home safely. So I think the incoming administration needs to just re-jig some of these things. And other player courts, you know, lines of action, if you like, for us to follow. When we are dealing with Nigerians, first of all, there are Nigerians in almost every country. And then there are Nigerians in countries that are experiencing conflict. You take Pokina Faso, you take Mali, you take Chad, you take Niger, you take Cameroon, countries impacted either by Boko Haram or Iswap, or countries impacted by the Sahili and so-called Jihadist movements. There are Nigerians in all these places. Now, are these Nigerians properly accounted for? In other words, is the Nigerian Embassy in these countries, do they have information on the exact number of Nigerians in those places? And should there be the need to evacuate them? Does our Embassy have, you know, the names, contact addresses and all that? Now, the Embassy can only play one part of the role. The citizens, so they have to play a significant part. They have to go to the Embassy, they have to register, and they have to keep updating their, if I'm living in Ume Duman in Sudan, and I register in the Embassy, I say I am in Ume Duman, and one year later I have moved to Darfur, and I do not update my record in the Embassy. God forbid, if something happens, then they would think I am still in Ume Duman, not knowing that I have moved to Darfur. So these are some of the challenges administratively that the authorities may have, that the larger population may not understand, and I'm not defending anyone. I'm just saying frankly what the situation is, so that when you now have an emergency, everybody starts shouting, oh, get everybody out, get everybody out. But then, if you don't have some of this information, it's going to be extremely difficult to plan, not to talk of coordinating and then doing the evacuation itself. So the incoming administration has to make sure that all of these things are clear and for me, the Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs must manage all public communication regarding Nigerians in other countries and whatever processes are being put in place to evacuate them, including our engagement with those countries or transit countries. It must be the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and no other government agency. Okay. I wish we had more time. We would have looked into a lot of other things and what you would recommend for the people who are coming back that the government should do. But we've run out of time. I would like to thank you, Mr. Aloha, for coming on the program and giving us insight as to what happens. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Always a pleasure. Okay. We were talking with Mr. Adebayo Loaki, Consulting Research Fellow, African Resource Development Center here in Lagos. We'll take a short break and we'll be joined by Wale Agbede, the sportsman who will be taking us around the world of sports. Stay with us.