Information emerging from the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has revealed that a total of 815 illegal immigrants were deported from Niger State in the past one year.
The Controller of the NIS in charge of Niger, Kwara and Kogi states, Alhaji Aminu Abdulkarim, disclosed this in Minna, the state capital, during an interactive session with journalists. He said about 99 per cent of the immigrants, who were arrested in different parts of the state, were Nigeriens, while Ghanaians and Beninese made up the remaining one per cent.
According to him, the majority of the deportees were arrested in the city after failing to produce valid documents authorising their stay in any part of the country: “Within the year under review, 908 Nigeriens, 192 Beninese and 162 Ghanaians that could not produce valid travelling documents were refused entry into the country at Babana border town in the state,” he said.
He also added that, within the same year, 2, 060 Nigeriens, 368 Beninese and 253 Ghanaians departed the country through the same border. Abdulkarim, who did not state if any of the foreigners was involved in any crime, said a total of 1,469 Nigeriens, 1,111 Nigeriens, 280 Beninese and 140 Ghanaians migrated illegally into the country through the same border in the same year. He assured that activities of the NIS were not targeted at citizens of a particular country, but aimed at checking the influx of people with invalid documents.