The final eight Nigerian students who had been defying their government’s directive to return home have now left Barbados.
The young men, who came here last December as part of a larger group under the Delta State Youth Empowerment Programme to pursue a nine-month course in tourism and agriculture at the Barbados Community College (BCC), left the island last night.
The remaining 70 Nigerians are scheduled to begin studies at the Barbados Institute of Management and Productivity (BIMAP) on Tuesday.
Just last Wednesday attorney-at-law Douglas Trotman accompanied the eight Nigerians to the High Court to file a suit on their behalf against an unnamed party. After making his arguments before Madame Justice Jacqueline Cornelius, Trotman told Barbados TODAY he had been given seven days within which to file his “without notice” case – action the party being sued did not know was coming its way.
FLASHBACK: Some of the Nigerian students at the Grantley Adams International Airport after arriving in December last year.
It is unclear what took place between that court appearance and yesterday that resulted in the students finally leaving Barbados, but it is understood that the Immigration Department played a role in the latest development.
The group’s studies at the BCC never got off the ground as the programme was plagued by controversy from its inception. It started with a group of the students going public with complaints about bad food, poor accommodation and a lack of drinking water at the Casa Grande Hotel in St Philip where they were staying.
The 13 students involved in what the Nigerian authorities described as an embarrassing situation were ordered back home. The first five of them left the island last month.