FG breaks silence over claims of abandoning Nigerians deported from US in Togo
FG breaks silence over claims of abandoning Nigerians deported from US in Togo
The Federal Government has dismissed reports that Nigerians deported from the United States were abandoned after being allegedly dumped in Togo by Ghanaian authorities.
It said the returnees were currently undergoing standard profiling procedures in line with international protocols.
Reacting to the viral claims, the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM) clarified that the affected Nigerians were not stranded but were being properly documented as part of a special deportation process.
NiDCOM’s Director of Media, Public Relations and Protocols, Abdur-Rahman Balogun, made this known in an interview with Sunday PUNCH on Saturday.
“We are aware that some Nigerians were deported, but they are not stranded; they are being profiled because their own deportation is special, unlike others.
“Nigeria did not abandon them (deportees); there was a deal that Ghana agreed with the US to accept that responsibility to receive deportees from the US who are from the West African sub-region.
“After they got to Ghana, Ghana took their own, dispatched others through Togo, so I think they are going through profiling, not that they are stranded; they are still undergoing the process of profiling,” Balogun said.
His clarification followed an allegation by one of the deportees, who claimed that the Ghanaian authorities secretly moved him and other West Africans from a military camp and left them stranded in Togo.
The man, who spoke to the BBC under anonymity, alleged that he, two Togolese nationals, and one Liberian were deceived into believing they were being relocated to better accommodation before being “dumped” in Togo.
“They did not take us through the main border; they took us through the back door. They paid the police there and dropped us in Togo,” he alleged.
The deportee, who lamented being stranded without documents, said he and a few others had resorted to staying in a hotel in Lomé, the Togolese capital, while depending on relatives abroad for survival.
The deportees, numbering 14, were said to be the first batch of immigrants expelled from the US under President Donald Trump’s “third-country deportation” policy, which allows the transfer of deportees to nations other than their own.
Ghana was the first West African country to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the US to receive such deportees, with former President John Mahama confirming that nationals from across West Africa would be accepted under the bilateral deal.
