I Bribed Officers With N3, 000 To Cross Border — Illegal Immigrants

Two Ghanaian illegal immigrants yesterday confessed to bribing officials at the Nigerian border with N3, 000 to gain entrance into the country.

Ibrahim Usman, one of the repatriated immigrants from Ghana said “I have been in Nigeria for the past 28 years with two wives, a Nigerian and the other one is a Ghanaian and blessed with ten children. He said he teaches Arabic Studies in Zaria international school.”

When asked how he passed through the border without necessary documents, he said, “We can spend more than N3, 000 as bribe to the officers to allow us pass through the border.”

Ahmed Salisu, also a Ghanaian said that he has lived in Nigeria for seven years and married with two children. They appealed to the government to give them some time to regularise their papers.

The illegal immigrants made the revelation during the repatriation of 101 Nigeriens and 2 Ghanaians by theKaduna State Command of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS).

Parading the illegal immigrants before their repatriation yesterday, the Kaduna State Comptroller of NIS, Hamman Yerima, said majority of the aliens were picked up in Government Reserved Areas (GRA) of Kadunametropolis were some of them were engaged as security guards, and urged Nigerians to engage only immigrants with legal permit.

He, however, blamed the influx of illegal immigrants into the country on nation’s porous borders, and advised that the borders should be fully equipped to check movement of illegal immigrants.

The comptroller said, “the Kaduna state command of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) as usual conducted mop up operations against illegal immigrants in the state. This time around we conducted an operation inKachia local government area on May 26, 2013, and we arrested 25 illegal immigrants.   

“The next day we also conducted another operation in high brow areas of Kaduna North, that is, ungwan Rimi GRA, Malali GRA, ungwan Dosa and Marafa where we arrested 59 suspects.

“Then at the toll gate, we also arrested 17 suspects, and earlier on we arrested two suspects, so all in all we have 103 suspects. And all these suspects are going to be repatriated this evening (yesterday) by the special grace of God. They are all Nigeriens. They are into menial jobs. They can be lured with small amount of money to do anything. We are sending them back by road.

“There is a particular case in Kaduna North where some Nigerians tried to prevent us from arresting the illegal aliens, so we had to arrest one of the Nigerians and brought him to our station, my men started giving him corporal punishment, but I had to stop them, and allowed him to go.

Source: http://leadership.ng/news/280513/i-bribed-officers-n3-000-cross-border-illegal-immigrants