The Federal Government of Nigeria and Germany on Wednesday pledged to deepen bilateral cooperation towards addressing regular and irregular migration.
Mr Basheer Mohammed, Federal Commissioner for Refugees, Migrants and IDPs, and Mrs Annette Widmann-Mauz, Minister of State of German Federal Chancellery made the pledge at the latter’s visit to Abuja.
Widmann-Mauz, German Commissioner for Migration, Refugees and Integration, spoke through an interpreter, Amb. Brigitt Ory, Ambassador of Germany to Nigeria.
According to her, the cooperation has become important to further strengthen efforts by the two countries to tackle issues that surrounded regular and irregular migration.
Widmann-Mauz, “We have to inform people before they leave their country of origin, in this case Nigeria; to inform them about legal regular pact of migration, especially over our skills migration Act.
“We want to make very clear conditions are set by the new law and we will like to support them in fulfilling these criteria.
“We will like to give advice and inform, but more than that, we will also like to offer language courses and trainings.
“Therefore we have the centres of information and advice, which will enhance the qualification, especially for the labour market.
“We will not only like to give information about the criteria for legal migration, but at the same time make clear if they are some wrong expectations about migration to Germany.
She said that explanations would be made to clarify issues on what illegal migration results to, saying our target is to support people not to go this very dangerous way.
She further said that an advice centre would be established to promote the cause, not just as qualification, but also to serve as vocational training centres.
On his part, Mohammed, commended the German government for the partnership, saying it would enhance efforts by the Nigerian government to tackle migration issues.
“This migration policy of the commission is working at a high level; this success can be attributed to President Muhammadu Buhari’s commitment in tackling the issue of migration.
“We have received a delegation from Ghana, they were here to study our best practices on migration governance and today, we are hosting a high powered delegation from Germany.
“This engagement has been a success and I am sure it will yield the right result, especially towards addressing the issue of regular and irregular migration,”he said. (NAN)
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