UK deports 200 Nigerians for alleged breach of immigration laws

By Louis Iba

ABOUT 200 Nigerians were yesterday deported from the United Kingdom (UK) to the country for alleged breach of immigration laws.

Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) source who doesn’t want to be named, told aviation correspon­dents that the deportees ar­rived at about 8.am at the international wing of the Murtala Mohammed Airport (MMA), Ikeja, Lagos.

“They were flown back to the country on board a Boeing 767 aircraft marked AWC931 and the flight orig­inated from London Stanst­ed Airport,” said the source.

“The Nigerians were de­ported for alleged immigra­tion-related offences, but those offences we are yet to be informed here at the La­gos Airport. It could prob­ably be that they entered the UK illegally.

“All those deported were frustrated and upon their arrival, some of them who had friends and relations in Lagos made calls to them to be picked up,” the source noted.

One of the deportees, who couldn’t leave the air­port immediately because he had no one to pick him up, told journalists that he had entered the UK with two passports – Netherland and Nigeria. “I have a dual citizenship of Nigeria and Netherlands and without the benefit of explaining myself, I was picked up on my way to a studio and de­ported,” he said.

He claimed that he does not know anybody in La­gos and brought back to the country without the back-up finances, and having no re­lation or friend in Lagos, he was lost and had nowhere to go.