NigerianFLIGHTDECK Travel and Business Reportage
FORTY-ONE Nigerians, Ghanaians comprising 33 males and eight females were this morning deported from the United Kingdom over various immigration offences and were brought into the country through the Murtala Mohammed International airport, MMIA, Lagos at 7:55am with a chartered aircraft painted in white and blue colours.
nigerianflightdeck.com gathered that some of the offences of the deportees included expired and fake travel documents and illegal entry into UK through different routes, some even from the United States.
A source close to one of the agencies involved in the repatriation of illegal immigrants told nigerianflightdeck.com that some deportees were returned from the U.S. for criminal offense.
It was also gathered that some of them had sought for asylum status in UK, which was not granted by the immigration authorities.
Sad looking men and women were seen at the Hajj Camp, ignoring efforts to speak with them as some were outright confrontational stating that they did not want to speak with the media as it was not a big deal.
However, one of the deportees confessed that he entered the UK with a Visiting Visa about two years ago, which has since expired but kept on staying because he said the economic situation in the country was not worth coming back to.
He said: “I didn’t enter UK with fake papers. I actually applied through the UK Embassy in Lagos and I was issued a six months visa, but when my visa expired, I decided to stay back there because there is no job in Nigeria.
“I’ve actually spent two years in the UK before I was arrested by the security authorities at my workplace. I regret not leaving the country at the right time especially when my visa was due. With this now, I won’t be able to return to that country. I just hope that our government can make Nigeria comfortable for its citizenry as a lot of us want to work and earn a living for ourselves.”
Some of the deportees were later seen loitering around while others tried to make telephone contact to some of their family members to take them out of the airport.
