UK begins deportation of 29,000 Nigerians

The United Kingdom (UK) has begun the deportation of 29,000 Nigerians alleged to have committed various immigration and other offences in the country.
UK has placed a deportation tag on 29,000 Nigerians with some of them at different detention centres across the country.
The first set of 48 deportees arrived Lagos yesterday morning.
The deportees were flown into Lagos about 6:30a.m. in a chattered B767 aircraft belonging to PITAN Airways with registration number ETA.
A report prepared by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) security department indicated that the 48 deportees include 44 males and four females.
The deportees were received and screened at the cargo terminal of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport by the officials from the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS).
An immigration source, who pleaded anonymity, said they were deported for immigration-related offences.
Some of the deportees were said to have been deported for fake immigration papers, criminal activities including drug trafficking.
Some of the deportees alleged to have committed criminal offences were handed over to officers from the Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID), Alagbon, Ikoyi, Lagos.
It was gathered that some of the deportees who were deported for immigration- related offences called their friends and relations to pick them up at the airport, while others secured cabs to take them to their various destinations.
The source noted that FAAN was expecting no fewer than 500 deportees, adding that this was only the first batch. One of the deportees lamented that the British police maltreated him.
“One person told me that he was arrested by the British police and was not allowed to even take his belongings before being deported,” the BBC said in its report. “A few of them who say they don’t have relatives here and are stranded in the airport.”
Some activists had protested against the planned deportation.
According to a London-based newspaper, The Telegraph, two activists, on Tuesday, glued themselves to the gate of an immigration centre in an attempt to stop the departure of a chartered flight deporting people from the UK.
Ten anti-deportation activists gathered to protest at Colnbrook immigration removal centre near Heathrow airport.
The protesters formed a blockade in a bid to stop a bus carrying deportees from the centre being taken to Stansted airport for a flight to Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone, the group added.
Police were at the scene for over five hours, but no arrests were made. London Fire Brigade also sent a fire engine to the scene.
A Met police spokesman said: “There were a small number of demonstrators in attendance at the immigration centre who had been there since 5:30p.m. “We were on the scene with the fire brigade in a monitoring role and there have been no arrests.”
The Acting Nigerian High Commissioner in London, Mr. Olukunle Bamgbose, had in October decried the migration and removal policy of the UK Government, which has placed a deportation tag on 29,000 Nigerians.
“I think about 29,000 Nigerians have been designated to be deported. We are insisting that due process must be followed before Nigerians are really removed from the UK to Nigeria,” he said.
Bamgbose gave four conditions that should be met by the UK Immigration Office before the commission could accept the migration and deportation agenda.
“First, we must ensure that they are really Nigerians; they are medically fit to travel; all the legal processes must have been completed and that they have roles to play in Nigeria.
“You do not expect someone who has not been to Nigeria for 30 years to 40 years and does not have any family, if he is deported, he will constitute social problems to us in Nigeria. So, these are the sore points that we have at the moment,” the envoy said.
A Nigeria-born British human rights activist and chairman of Commonwealth Liberation Party (TCLP), a registered political party in England, Alexia Thomas, had described the deportation as an attempt to “depower coloured people.”
Thomas has embarked on a massive campaign against the decision. In a statement issued on Monday, Thomas gave UK a two-week ultimatum to rescind on the decision.
“The United Kingdom ruling government is given up till the 7th of December, 2015, to pronounce mandate to release Nigerian citizens from immigration detention centres in the UK unconditionally without compromise, or else by 9th December, 2015, they (British government) should expect Nigerian citizens to boycott British products and produce.
“The Nigerian people will refuse to patronise British airlines and Nigerian citizens will refuse to visit British embassy or submit applications nor pay them any fees.
“The British government’s intention is a premeditated attempt to ‘depower coloured people’s civilisation enrichment’.
“Their action is war against humanity. The Queen is called upon to caution the Conservative ruling government before they bring shame to the British Kingdom as their actions to dehumanise citizens from the Commonwealth nations and treat them as third class citizens by denying them equality means third world war is looming.”
Also, the House of Representatives had, in October, mandated its Committee on Diaspora and Foreign Affairs to wade into the case of 29,000 Nigerians tagged for deportation from the UK.
The resolution of the House followed a motion on matters of urgent public importance entitled “need to address the issues and challenges surrounding 29, 000 Nigerians tagged for deportation from the UK” sponsored by Hon. Rita Orji.