No fewer than 500 Nigerians have been deported from the United Kingdom to Nigeria.<\/p>\n
They arrived at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos this morning.<\/p>\n
Reports indicate that most of them have been deported over illegal stay permits.<\/p>\n
Those who spoke to the media complained about how they were handled by the British authorities, alleging that majority of them were not even allowed take their belongings before being deported.<\/p>\n
It has been reported that the authorities plan to deport 29,000 Nigerians.<\/p>\n
But the Nigeria High Commission in London had \u00a0in October expressed worry over plans by the migration and removal policy of the UK Government, to deport the 29,000 Nigerians.<\/p>\n
The Acting Nigerian High Commissioner in London, Olukunle Bamgbose, said. \u201cI think about 29,000 Nigerians have been designated to be deported.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are insisting that due process must be followed before Nigerians are really removed from the UK to Nigeria,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
He gave four conditions that should be met by the UK immigration office before the commission could accept the migration and deportation agenda.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst, 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 role to play in Nigeria.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou do not expect someone who has not been to Nigeria for 30 years to 40 years, and does not have any family and you want to deport him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe will constitute social problems to us in Nigeria; so these are the sore points at this moment that we have,\u2019\u2019 the envoy said.<\/p>\n
Mr. Bamgbose noted that in spite of the challenge, the relationship between Nigeria and UK had deepened, adding that the UK is ready to engage with Nigerians in various aspects including defence, immigration, trade and investment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 2012 trade volume between the two countries was about four billion pounds, which has doubled now.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut with what we now have British investors are ready to move into Nigeria in a massive way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI expect that in the next two to three years the trade volume will triple and go to about 12 billion pound or even more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Bamgbose attributed the rise to the new confidence the foreign investors had in Nigeria and the new administration.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe willingness of the British businessmen to even want to come to Nigeria is very important.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause, hitherto, the way we were running the government they did not have that confidence in government.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are not really sure whether they can go into Nigeria and invest.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow with the new administration, what they believe the new administration can do and the fidelity with which the new administration has brought to governance that is the first thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to have the confidence of those who are going to Nigeria to invest and I think with what is going on now they are very confident that they can go into Nigeria and invest,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut since the new administration came in we have found our bounce, there is that diplomatic bounce once again.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne the Federal Government has taken the batch on the Boko Haram, they are being decimated; also the energy problem is being addressed frontally also again the issue of graft is also being addressed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have found our bounce and as diplomats here we are going to engage our colleagues from other countries without necessarily being apologetic by our country,\u2019\u2019 he added.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: Daily Post<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
No fewer than 500 Nigerians have been deported from the United Kingdom to Nigeria. They arrived at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos this morning. Reports indicate that most of them have been deported over illegal stay permits. Those who spoke to the media complained about how they were handled by the British authorities, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":169581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-169574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=169574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/169581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=169574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=169574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=169574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}