March 6, 2022

While Nigerian government has made spirited effort to evacuate citizens stranded in Europe over the Russia-Ukraine war, some Nigerians are said to have found their way to other European countries, preferring to stay back rather than return to Nigeria.

A Nigerian student at the University of Debrecen in Hungary, one of the countries marked safe for the evacuation of stranded Nigerians, told Political Economist that some Nigerians have already found their way into Budapest and other cities in Hungary with intent to stay back.

‘We have seen some Nigerians here in Hungary who fled Ukraine. They obviously don’t want to return to Nigeria. They are working on settling in Hungary for the time being rather than return to Nigeria. They say Nigeria is worse and they would rather do menial jobs here than return to Nigeria,” said the student who pleaded not to be named.

Another Nigerian student who spoke to Channelstv.com‘s  via Zoom on Friday, also underscored the reality that some Nigerians would rather stay back than return.

“I will seek for student permit and continue my life from here,” says Lukman Ibrahim, a student and artist who was able to flee Ukraine into Poland “because home is not safe, everybody knows this.”

When asked to explain what he meant by ‘not safe’, Ibrahim, who studied at the International European University in Kyiv before the invasion,  referenced the ongoing fuel scarcity ravaging major Nigerian cities.

“You now expect me to come home and face the same thing when I just survived a war? I will never do that,” he said.