The Nigeria Police handed over 26 illegal aliens who were arrested in Ayua, near Auchi last week to the Nigeria Immigration Service for interrogation.
The spokesman of the Edo State Police Command, Chidi Nwabuzor, who disclosed this on Friday in Benin, said the foreigners were moved to the custody of the Edo State Command of NIS on Monday, November 13, 2023.
Nwabuzor added that when the aliens were quizzed, it was discovered that they could not effectively communicate in the English language or identify their countries of origin.
He said, “They confessed that a certain young man brought them to Nigeria through the Cameroon border. The 26 migrants comprised 16 males and eight females from Cameroon while the remaining two, a male and a female from Burkina Faso, were reportedly arrested at Ayua-Uzaire, Etsako West Local Government Area of Edo State on November 9th, 2023.
“The Nigerian, who claimed to have lived and worked in Cameroon for years, simply identified himself as an excavator operator and confessed to having brought the foreigners to the country to join in excavation work at the small Edo town.”
The spokesman of NIS, Edo Command, Mr Ki Ake is yet to comment on the issue but checks at the NIS Edo headquarters in Benin, however, revealed that the 26 migrants have been kept in a special facility of the service pending a thorough investigation.
A source at NIS told City Round that the Comptroller of Immigration in Edo has directed that illegal migrants be screened, profiled, and documented.
He added that their arrest followed credible intelligence received by the Divisional Police Officer of Jattu divisional police headquarters.