Hundreds of illegal immigrants deported in Kano

By Our Reporter9 hours 29 minutes ago

Following the spate of suicide bomb attacks in the country, the Nigeria Immigration Service has deported hundreds of illegal immigrants from the northern Nigerian city of Kano.

A senior Immigration Officer at the Kano Command of the Service, who spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity, said the deportation of illegal immigrants from the state was done for the sake of national security.
The source said the aliens, who have no valid travel documents, usually engaged in menial and undignifying jobs in the state, and as such could be ready tools in the hands of mischief makers.

According to him, Nigeriens, Senegalese, Malians, Sudanese, Chadians and Somalis were among the hundreds of foreigners deported from the country in the last couple of weeks.

He disclosed that the Nigerian Immigration Service had adopted a quiet tactical approach in purging the country of illegal immigrants so as to deport as many of them as possible.

The officer, who has served in critical departments of the service for several years, further revealed that the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Immigration Service handed down an instruction to all the commands to carry out a ‘silent mop up exercise’ to fish out illegal immigrants and hand them over to authorities in their respective countries of origin.

The senior officer said he was confident that with the deportation of the aliens, the security of lives and property of Nigerians would be enhanced as, according to him, those who carried out the suicide attacks on the Police Headquarters and the UN Building were not Nigerians.
The source also stated that all the state commands had been instructed not to disclose their modes of operation to newsmen, as that could jeopardiee efforts aimed at ridding the country of illegal immigrants.

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