TheCable

The Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) says only 48 Nigerians were deported from the United Kingdom on Tuesday.

Speaking with Punch, Ekpedeme King, spokesman of the service, said the deportees committed immigration-related offences.

“Some of them have overstayed their visa,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.

Meanwhile, NAN put the number of the affected persons at 50, giving the breakdown as 44 males and six females.

The agency said they were flown into Nigeria at about 6:30am in a chartered B767 aircraft belonging to PITAN Airways.

Immigration officials reportedly received and screened them at the cargo terminal of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos.

A reliable source at the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) told NAN that some of them were deported for immigration-related offences.

The source, who pleaded anonymity, said some of the deportees called their friends and relations to pick them up, while others secured cabs to take them to their various destinations.

According to the source, those alleged to have committed criminal offences, were handed over to officers from the Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID), Alagbon, Ikoyi, Lagos.

The source noted that FAAN was expecting about 500 deportees, saying that this is the first batch.

Olukunle Bamgbose, acting Nigerian high commissioner to the UK, had recently disclosed that the UK government had plans to deport about 29,000 Nigerians.

In an earlier report, the BBC said 500 Nigerians were sent back to the country on Tuesday.