HUNDREDS of wealthy Nigerians who travelled abroad in the run-up to the recent general elections amid fears that there would be an outbreak of violence have now started returning home as normality returns to the country.  

Nigeria held presidential, senatorial and House of Representatives elections on March 28 and governorship and state house of assembly polls on April 11. In the run-up to the polls, tension was high as the rhetoric between the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) and the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) got heated. 

There had been fear of an outbreak of violence during and after the elections but in the main, it was peaceful, apart from a few isolated skirmishes. Many Nigerians who travelled abroad early in the year thinking that the country would be inflamed have now started returning after General Muhammadu Buhari of the APC was declared the winner and the country is peaceful. 

One such Nigerian, Beatrice Adekayero, who left Nigeria with her three children for the US on January 7, 2015, said that the fear of violence made her husband relocate the family abroad. She admitted that the peaceful conduct of the elections necessitated her return. 

Josephine Anipupo, whose husband owns an auto shop in Apapa area of Lagos State, also returned to the country early in the week. Ms Anipupo, who said she was constantly calling home to find out the situation of things, added that she heaved a sigh of relief after the elections. 

Uche Okondu, a Lagos-based businessman who also returned on April 2, 2015, a day after the final result of the presidential election was announced, said he did not need to wait till after the governorship elections since the presidential poll was peaceful. Taxi drivers at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos are enjoying a boom in business as a result. 

One of the drivers Peter Ola, said: “It is boom time for us, no doubt. Before the elections, you needed to come and see how people were running out of the country and when I asked some of my customers why, they told me they were not willing to die in any election-related crisis. 

"Thank God there’s no serious crisis as the way many of them sounded, it was as if they saw a vision or had premonitions that there would be problems. I carried one family who told me they were on their way to the US and as God would have it, I collected their contacts so they could call me to carry them from the airport on their arrival back to Lagos, which they did last week."