More than sixty Nigerians who were displaced from South Africa are beginning their lives afresh in Rivers State, in the south of the country, where they are being temporarily housed at a shelter provided by a local church ministry. According to Channels Television, the returnees arrived home in two batches, on the third and the nineteenth of July, after being forced to abandon their homes and livelihoods in South Africa, and are now trying to rebuild from almost nothing.
The group is being accommodated at the OPM Free Estate in Aluu, in Rivers State, in self-contained apartments that give each family a place to rest. Many of them returned empty-handed, carrying little more than the memory of a journey cut short, and are now adjusting to an unfamiliar environment shaped, as the report described it, by hope, gratitude and a search for stability after the ordeal of being uprooted.
The shelter and the support around it are being provided by Omega Power Ministries, whose founder, Apostle Chibuzo Chinere, publicly opened the doors of the estate to the returnees. Beyond the free accommodation, the ministry has pledged scholarships for the children of the displaced families and other forms of assistance, presenting the gesture as an act of compassion toward people who came back with nothing to their name.
For one family of six, the estate has become a temporary anchor after a turbulent journey. The head of the household described the moment as a fresh beginning and said the ministry founder's promise of education for his children had renewed his hope, even as the family continues to count the losses it left behind in South Africa and tries to picture a future built back from the ground up.
While expressing gratitude for the private support they have received, the returnees stressed that rebuilding their lives fully will require the help of the government for proper reintegration. They said that the generosity of a single benefactor, however welcome, cannot on its own restore what they lost, and they appealed for both government agencies and non-governmental organisations to step in and complement the effort.
The founder of the ministry acknowledged that hosting the families carries a significant cost, but insisted that the effort is driven by compassion rather than by the size of the resources behind it. Speaking about keeping the mission going, he echoed the principle that no mission can survive without means, while emphasising that the returnees are being given whatever the ministry can offer for as long as they need it.
For those now sheltering at the OPM Free Estate in Aluu, the immediate concern is finding stability, restarting their children's education and securing the kind of longer-term support that would allow them to stand on their own feet again. For the moment, the ministry's estate remains a place of temporary refuge, and the families are waiting to see what further help, especially from public institutions, will follow.