About 100 Nigerians deported from four Scandinavian countries arrived at the international wing of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport two weeks ago for seeking asylum in those countries as well as committing immigration offences.
SHOLA ADEKOLA, who was at the airport, reports that emotion was high the moment the deportees were herded to the cargo wing of the airport.
Dressed in jeans trousers and different tops, the deportees, consisting of men, women and children were sent home from Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway for immigration related offences.
Their faces reflected despair and injustice, just as many of them were engaged in deep hushed conversations with their family members and among themselves. Though what they were discussing was not clear to the reporters nosing around, these, it was obvious, were worried about the uncertainty that surrounded the fate that awaited them.
They were flown into the airport on a chartered aircraft from Oslo via Madrid, Spain. The chartered aircraft landed around 6:50 a.m. and taxied to the cargo wing of the airport, where they were handed over to security agents for proper documentation.
According to information gathered, they were deported from Finland’s immigration camp after their asylum cases got disapproved.
Recounting his ordeal, one of the deportees, who refused to give his name, lamented how the Nigerian embassy officials in Sweden colluded with Norwegian authorities to facilitate their deportation.
One of them, female and pregnant, also said even her condition did not deter the Finnish immigration officials from maltreating her.
“I went through hell. I was maltreated, even my condition did not prevent them from pushing, kicking me, though I didn’t commit any offence,” she said.
The pregnant woman said she was in Finland to seek asylum from Greece, where she had spent over eight years while another male deportee said he spent 14 years in Finland with valid documents, yet he was sent home.
Conspicuous among the deportees was a man with his wife and their two teenage children born in Greece, who sought asylum in Finland, but were also deported.
The deportees revealed how the authorities in the Scandinavian countries were hostile towards Nigerian whereas nationals of other African countries were granted asylum.
Why seeking asylum?
Many people who saw the deportees wondered why physically fit and sound citizens would leave their country to seek asylum in another country.
A middleaged man, who was waiting to catch his flight to England, on the fateful day, told Sunday Tribune that it was worrisome to see young Nigerians who should either be schooling at home or contributing to the nation’s economy travelling to little-known countries without valid papers.
“It is embarrassing,” he said. “I feel betrayed seeing or hearing that Nigerians are abroad seeking asylum. Is the country at war or what?
“Why would any reasonable person who is not lazy throw his country into shame by begging a foreign country to allow him stay in its country? I can’t fathom this. It is embarrassing,” he lamented.
While others blamed the situation on the government, they maintained that the deportees must have lost hope in the country where hundreds of thousands of employable Nigerians are left without any job.
Constant deportation of Nigerians
It was observed that many Nigerians are being deported from Europe, the Americas as well as Asian and African countries in droves.
Hardly would a day pass by without a Nigerian deportee at the airport, though this has also been blamed on the inability of many of the deportees for living in foreign countries without valid papers.
An airport source said the number of Nigerians going out of the country through illegal means on a daily basis had become a source of concern to government, adding that there seemed to be no end in sight since situation of things at home had refused to change.
“It has become a source of concern, because the same rate at which Nigerians troop out of the country is the same at which they are sent back home for various reasons, mostly immigration issues.
“Such reasons range from illegal entry, illegal travel papers to overstay and other misdemeanours. To say things are alright in the country may not be actually right, for if it is all that okay, Nigerians would not be desperate to leave the country the way they are trooping out,” the source explained.
Many of these deportees, Sunday Tribune learnt, have been accused of drug trafficking, prostitution while some who fall under the category of asylum seekers are not spared at all. Those who are not that lucky to be deported are either serving various jail terms or awaiting the hangman’s noose.
Hostility against Nigerians?
A man, who simply identified himself as Chidi, said there was a huge hostility against Nigerians who are usually the targets of hostility in foreign countries. He hinged his claim on the enterprising spirit of Nigerians wherever they found themselves.
“Besides, the embarrassing manner the foreign countries deport Nigerians is the peak of hostility against Nigerians. Some Nigerians even lose their lives in the process, particularly youths across the globe, yet the Nigerian government would never challenge the maltreatment of its citizens,” Chidi noted.
It will be recalled that not too long ago, two Nigerian youths who were schooling in Dubai were cut down in their prime. Many people believed that the response of the government on the matter was not firm enough.
This injustice is not limited to developed countries. Smaller African countries like Morocco, Mauritania, Sudan and Libya have deported over 5,000 Nigerians or more in the past five years.
“From investigations, the closeness of Libya to Europe has been a major attraction to Nigerians. No wonder 90 per cent of prisoners in Zamwia Zamzu prison and prostitutes in Libya are said to be Nigerians,” remarked an official in the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS).
According to him, Libya has been observed to be notorious for killing many black Africans, who are said to be illegal immigrants while those who narrowly escaped death were subjected to dehumanising tortures. Beside the inhuman treatment, many female immigrants were often subjected to rape, while their property would be confiscated by the security personnel in the country.
A former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chief Ojo Madueke, had once in the past, declared that about 59,000 Nigerians carrying illegal travel documents were waiting in some African countries for an opportunity to cross over to Europe.
According to him, 8,000 of them are in Morocco, 16,000 in Algeria, 20,000 in Libya, while 15,000 in Mauritania.
Former Nigeria’s ambassador to Libya, Alhaji Mohammed Ibrahim, corroborated Chief Madueke’s claim to revealing the gruesome rate such Nigerians took to enter Libya. Most, he said, came through the Sahara desert to the northern African country, adding that by the time they arrived in the country, they soon realized that it was almost a dead end and that it was too late for them to go back.
Alhaji Ibrahim, who lamented the way Nigerian youths moved outside the country, declared how thousands of the youth were being swallowed by the desert daily, all in the name of traveling abroad by all means.
Most of these deportees, who spoke with Sunday Tribune during questions and answers from the media, attributed reasons for traveling out to hardship and unemployment, saying in order to fend for themselves they had chosen to use all means to achieve their dreams while others decided to travel out having become tired of what they called “Nigerian hostile environment towards youths”.
Most people who spoke with Sunday Tribune agreed that government ought to look into the reasons given by these deported Nigerians. Government, at best, is primarily empowered to make the country more comfortable for its citizens.
According to Mrs Adebola Ayokunle, a banker in Lagos, there is an urgent need for the Federal Government to review its relationship with many countries across the world, taking into consideration the manner in which they treat its citizens.
“Maybe if the government uses one of the foreign countries as example, others would begin to respect its citizens and not a case of singling out Nigerians for deportation or inhuman treatment at any slightest opportunity.
“Again, the government should make the environment more friendly to its citizens; this would reduce the high rate of injustice and hostility being meted out to Nigerians,” said the mother of two, who claimed to have left USA when she got tired of the situations of things there.
She also called on the government to address infrastructural decay, erratic power supply, insecurity, political instability, unemployment, noting that all these were push factors that sent Nigerians away from their place of birth.
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