By Victoria OJEME
AT least 2,000 foreigners,  among them, those fleeing political maltreatment as a result of being in the opposition from the West, North and Central African regions have applied to the Nigerian government for political asylum.

Majority of those  on the list seeking to be granted asylum, Saturday Vanguard gathered at the weekend include women, children and rape victims of the civil wars that have continued to ravage the west and central African region.

Also, the Federal Government is set to unveil a national policy on migration, as part of measures to regulate the influx and activities of irregular migrants in Nigeria .

Federal Commissioner for Refugees, Hajiya Hadiza Kangiwa, said  that as at January 2010, it was estimated that there are over 2000 asylum seekers and more than half of them are women and children.

“We also have quite a number of political asylum seekers who the commission is not directly catering for. At least, they are guests of the Federal Government of Nigeria. We are not directly catering for these categories of persons we have no control of some of whom  go abroad to claim refugee status of Nigerians.

“We are also aware that there are some Nigerians that claimed asylum abroad. There are a lot of them that tell terrible lies about our government while seeking  asylum. When these refugees return, we treat them as returnees and we have a system that we have implemented as a returnee project in Taraba State where we successfully integrated returning refugees.”

Speaking on the National Policy, the commissioner said, “we promote policy a we have drafted policy on Internal Displaced Persons now. As I am talking to you, there is a draft on migration we contributed to the adoption of IDP formation at the AU which we hope would be embarked on the domestication process.

“So our work does not just involve in giving of relief or skill acquisition centres but we do a whole range like establishing system structures like legal instrument for protection, prevention and mitigation of persons.”

On the out come of the resettled Nigerians from Bakassi Peninsula, Hajia Kangiwa said these are people who were affected by the International Court of Justice judgment and they are refugees.
According to her, “there is a federal government committee which we are not part of it .