In a bid to stem the tide of insecurity, the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has launched a special operation to fish out illegal aliens in different parts of Nigeria and deport them to their countries of origin.
At least, no fewer than a hundred illegal migrants have been repatriated to their home countries in the last couple of months. In 2013, the Nigerian Immigration Service said it deported over 22,000 illegal migrants from across the country.
Comptroller General of Nigeria Immigration Service, Mr. Martin Abeshi told Sunday Telegraph that special operations of identifying illegal migrants have been conducted in Lagos, Port Harcourt and Kano. Abeshi acknowledged that though there has been a continuous influx of illegal migrants into Nigeria, the Nigeria Immigration Service has been working round the clock to ensure that these elements did not constitute a nuisance or compound the security situation in the country.
“l expect that every week, you should be hearing that some numbers of aliens have been deported out of this country. It happened in Port Harcourt, it is happening in Lagos, it is happening in Kano and it is happening all over the country. We are up to this task. Our boys and our officers in various parts of this country are performing very well and I am very sure that we are on top of this matter.
Our officers are doing well to checkmate any foreigner that is here in this country and is trying to disrupt the peace that we are enjoying today,” he said . Nigeria has one of the most porous borders in West Africa, with about 1,497 illegal entry points, thousands of illegal migrants usually find their ways into the country with relative ease.
The current escalation of violent clashes between armed herdsmen and farmers in several states is believed to be remotely connected with the influx of some illegal migrant herdsmen from countries such as Niger, Chad, Mali and Senegal.
Last week, no fewer than five hundred illegal aliens were arrested and paraded before newsmen in Minna, Niger State. Out of this number, 300 were found to had entered the country illegally from Niger Republic. The immigration service has commenced the process of repatriating these illegal migrants to their country.
Comptroller of Immigration, Niger State Command, Mr. David Adi, who paraded the ‘irregular immigrants’ in Minna, said most of the arrested persons were from the Republic of Niger and would be repatriated after proper documentation of their identities. Adi said that the arrest of the migrants followed an intelligence operation conducted by men of the Nigeria Immigration Service in the 25 local government areas of Niger state.
“When I assumed office, I discovered that the state is filled with illegal immigrants. So, I immediately swung into action. I summoned all my Divisional Immigration officers of the 25 local government areas in the state to find out the location of these immigrants, where they are staying, what type of duty do they do and get back to me.
“So, what we are seeing today is as a result of intelligence work done by my officers in Chanchaga, Bosso, Kotangora, Bida, Suleja and Paiko. As you can see, we have arrested over 500 persons and out of which 300 are illegal immigrants.
“You know that most of the people misinterpreted the provisions of the ECOWAS protocol which stipulates that members of a community or a country can come into Nigeria. Now, the law at the same time said they must have their travelling documents, and must come in through approved entry points.
They must also have visible means of livelihood. But what we are seeing is that most of these people do not have travelling documents, some of them just hold nylon (cellophane) bags and come into the country,” he said.
Adi urged the citizens of Niger State to join forces with the Immigration Service to flush out these illegal migrants because they posed security threats to the state and country at large.
“They claim that to obtain international passport is very difficult yet they could not get the ECOWAS permit. We want them to go back to their countries or get proper documents to enable them get residents/ work permit as the case may be so that we can document them into our system,” he said. He warned that after the planned repatriation, if any of these persons returns to Nigeria, they will be rearrested and repatriated again until they ceased to enter Nigeria illegally. Similarly, the Gombe State Command of the Nigeria Immigration Service has repatriated 112 illegal aliens to their countries of origin in the last eight months.
Comptroller of Immigration in the state, Alhaji Yunusa Aliyu, said that the exercise followed a ministerial directive, adding that the service would soon embark on another on another round of the operation to identify illegal aliens.
Aliyu disclosed that most of the aliens repatriated were from the Republic of Niger and Mali, adding that they were mostly found in Gombe and Akko Local Government Areas of the state. He sought the cooperation of the indigenes of Gombe State in the task of flushing out the illegal aliens.
