Nigerians have criticised the federal government’s validation of ‘Alabuga Start’, a vocational training project for foreign citizens, which is a Russian arms empire where youngsters from Africa and other continents are being used for drone assembly.
The federal government are seen validating the project through its 2023 Vocational Training Project for Foreign Citizens ‘Alabuga Start’ advertisement that reads, “This is to inform all interested qualified Nigerian candidates of ages 18-22, holding O’level certificates that the Special Economic Zone of Alabuga Yelabuzhsky District, Republic of Tatarstan, Russian Federation offers admission and vocational training project ‘Alabuga Start’ in Alabuga Polytech College for the 2023/24 academic session.”
According to the advert, the programmes include BIM Design, Chemistry, Industrial Robots, Microelectronics, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Automation, General Medicine and Medtech, Economics, Pedagogy, Law, IT and Python, and Business Informatics.
The advert also highlighted some of the benefits for successful applicants, such as reduced-rate accommodation, a monthly allowance ($550) and the cost of flight to Russia to be covered by the relevant Russian authority.
However, studies have shown that the supposedly scholarship offer is a window to lure young foreign citizens to serve as workers assembling Iranian drones in a Russian factory, thereby disguising it as a work-study programme.
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Recall, on April 23, Ukrainian drones attacked the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in Russia’s Tatarstan region, where Iranian-designed suicide drones are made.
On this occasion, there were no reported casualties. But several African women were wounded when their dormitory was struck in 2024.
Experts emphasised that the repeated strikes on the special economic zone underscore the military significance of Alabuga, which has been under Western sanctions since 2024.
But by drawing attention to the unusual presence of African workers on Russian assembly lines, they also raise troubling questions for African governments.
Why are African citizens toiling at the heart of Vladimir Putin’s arms empire? And what, if anything, will they do to help them?
BusinessDay findings show that few students or immigrant workers desperate for survival would willingly sign up to become a military target.
Yet that is the situation in which hundreds of young African women, some of them younger than 18, have unwittingly found themselves.
Ukrainian officials have pressed their African counterparts to put a stop to recruitment in their countries to little effect. Some African countries have signed formal agreements with Alabuga itself.
African diplomats, including Nigerians, have toured the factory; yet the federal government is seen placing adverts for Alabuga Start, encouraging young Nigerians to apply.
Adewale Adetugbo, speaking on this via his official X handle @aadetugbo, decried the act, “My government is running a scholarship scheme for Nigerian women to build drones in Russia; in a factory that is often attacked by Ukraine.”
Tyro @DoubleEph also decried the act when he stated, “Absolutely insane. Can’t rely on the government to do the most basic due diligence. They flew a Nigerian minister there and showed him a fake site, and he came back and started marketing the place.”
Similarly, Lotanna @lotxnna said, “Tinubu is selling young Nigerians down the Volga river.”
For Akin Omo’Akin, @hola_akins, “Seeing incidents like this still gullibly supported by a 20th-century government makes the October 1st movie a case to always reckon with, our government lacks a duty of care to the citizens.”
Alabuga began producing drones shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. At first, the bulk of the workers it recruited, some allegedly forcibly, were local students.
But soon war-induced labour shortages prompted the factory’s owners to look for cheap foreign labour to plug the gap. They established ‘Alabuga Start’, which they advertised as an exciting work-study programme for fields such as catering and hospitality.
Though ostensibly open to ‘talented people from all over the world’, in reality, most of those targeted by the scheme were in Africa.
Recently, South America has become an additional focus. Most troubling, the recruiters had one specific demographic in mind: women between the ages of 18 and 22. There is no obvious reason why this should be the case.
According to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, a non-profit organisation report, “The vast majority of those recruited from overseas are involved in manufacturing drones.”
That hardly supports the scheme’s claim that “Many of the professionals available require a certain level of feminine attention to detail.”
To buttress this view, Timur Shagivaleev, the boss of Alabuga, has reportedly said that African men are “too aggressive and dangerous” to be pliant workers, which is a more plausible explanation for their preference for young women, whom they can easily control.
Unfortunately, according to an Ethiopian woman’s account, many recruits seem to have been oblivious to what the job really entails, possibly because employees are banned from talking to outsiders about their work.
“I don’t think many know about the firm’s bad labour practices”, says the Ethiopian woman who cancelled her application after reading about the factory online.
Adverts distributed on social media and Telegram, a popular messaging app, are deceptive that the UN says the scheme could constitute human trafficking.
Most African governments, and Nigeria inclusive, need jobs, however distasteful, for unemployed youngsters. Many also back Russia over Ukraine.
However, Nigerians are worried that the federal government could be enslaving the citizens in the name of foreign scholarship.
