The Oyo State Government says it is working toward setting up an employment scheme that will provide work opportunities for its repatriated indigenes.
The Oyo State Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism stated this in a statement it issued on Wednesday in Ibadan.
The ministry said that Dr Akin Fagbemi, the Chairman, Oyo State Road Transport Management Authority (OYRTMA), disclosed this after a meeting he had on Tuesday with Mrs Bolanle Sarumi-Aliyu, the Senior Special Adviser to Gov. Seyi Makinde on Diaspora Affairs.
According to the ministry, the meeting centered on how the Department of Diaspora Affairs can effectively partner OYRTMA in the area of providing opportunities for Oyo State indigenes who for one reason or the other had to return home from different parts of the world.
The ministry recalled that some of the returnees were subjected to various degrees of inhuman conditions or harsh and hostile work environments while in the foreign land.
It quoted the OYRTMA boss as saying that his agency would collaborate with Sarumi-Aliyu, to make life easier for the returnees.
It said that it would create a special arrangement and training for some of them and subsequently co-opt them into the ‘OYRTMA Mayor Scheme’.
“This will enable them earn a living through government-provided stipends, whilst contributing significantly to the economic growth of the state by ensuring a free flow of human and vehicular traffic across the state.
“In addition, this will help take them off the street as they struggle to reintegrate back into the contemporary Nigerian society.” Fagbemi stated.
