Posted by By George Onah on
NO fewer than 2,065 Nigerians are facing deportation from the Republic of Cameroun. However, the first set of 340 of the deportees arrived Calabar from Cameroun, Monday, by sea on board a merchant vessel. Another set of the returnees was expected in Calabar last night.
CALABAR - NO fewer than 2,065 Nigerians are facing deportation from the Republic of Cameroun. However, the first set of 340 of the deportees arrived Calabar from Cameroun, Monday, by sea on board a merchant vessel. Another set of the returnees was expected in Calabar last night.
On arrival, the Customs and Immigration officials took the deportees for formal documentation, after which they were taken to a transit camp. At the uncompleted school buildings where they are kept, policemen disallowed Vanguardfrom talking to the deportees. An armed inspector and four other policemen claimed that the people had not been quartered in the premises.
But some dresses and shoes spread outside and on the uncompletedwindows were pointers to the fact that the returnees were camped there. At the State Emergency Management Agency's office on Barracks Road, Vanguard was told by an official that the deportees were taken to camp on Monday.
Welcoming the returnees, Secretary to the State Government, Mr. Johnson Ebokpo, told them that the Federal Government had the ability to protect Nigerians where ever they might be. He asked them to 'feel at home," adding that their various governments would be contacted and plans put in place to take them home for resettlement.
Accompanied by the Commissioner for Women Affairs, Mrs. Uduak Akiba-Ebo, the SSG said the operation to bring back the rejected Nigerians in Cameroon would take two weeks.