Deportees on arrival at Hajj terminal of Lagos airport
Three European countries have deported 28 Nigerians a fortnight after it sent 48 back to Nigeria for various immigration offences.
The 28 Nigerians were said to have been deported from three European nations for residing in those countries illegally.
They were repatriated from Italy, Switzerland and Belgium.
A source close to the State Security Service (SSS) attached to the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA, Lagos disclosed that 24 of the returnees were brought from Italy and two each from Switzerland and Belgium.
The deportees arrived the hajj camp area of MMIA around 7:25pm with over 80 per cent of them being males.
The deportees were airlifted back into Nigeria by Meridiana Fly aircraft, which emanated from Rome.
The returnees were received by various agencies such as Immigration that checked their identities to ascertain their nationalities, Police, National Agency for Protection and Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) and other relevant stakeholders.
The SSS said the deportees were returned to the country for overstaying their visas in the European countries.
After deporting 48 Nigerians the British authorities also planned to deport no fewer than 500 Nigerians in the coming months for staying in that country without valid papers.
One of the deportees then, Success Smart, a 15-year teenage girl claimed that she travelled out of the Nigeria two years ago through the tedious Libyan route.
On why she did not return with the earlier batch during Libyan repatriation exercise, she said she was learning a trade to become a hairdresser and that her parents refused to sign agreement with her master as an apprentice while she was in Nigeria then.
She, however, regretted travelling out of the country and urged other Nigerian youths against seeking any greener pasture abroad.
