The Comptroller, Nigeria Immigration Service, Ogun State Command, Bosede Olayemisi, has confirmed the arrest of 62 illegal migrants comprising of 61 Cameroonians and one Burkinabe.
She said the affected persons would be repatriated to their countries this week.
Olayemisi said the illegal migrants were picked up around Ibafo and Asese in the Obafemi-Owode Local Government Area of the state after an intelligent report from the Lagos Zonal Command.
She disclosed this on Tuesday while parading the suspects at the Immigration state command headquarters, Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta.
She said, “Last week, we got a report from our Zonal Command in Lagos that a Cameroonian was there to obtain a Nigerian passport but was arrested. He claimed to be living at Ibafo. He later confessed that there were many of them living between Ibafo and Sagamu, so we sent out our men; they discovered the lounge where they were staying and arrested 33 of them at Ibafo. Two days later, we got wind that some of them usually meet at Asese, the Mowe area and brought another 28 Cameroonians and one Burkinabe.
“They kept mentioning one Terrace, a Cameroonian and Peter, a Nigerian who is at the centre of this illicit act. We have detained two Nigerians to help with the investigation. We are already making preparations to return them to their countries. They are illegal migrants and they have to go back to their countries because they entered the country illegally. They are, no doubt, constituting security risk, forming an entity within our country.”
Olayemisi said the illegal migrants from Cameroon had that they were invited into the country with a promise of getting jobs.
She said the jobs later turned out to be a networking business in which they paid as much as N600,000 to register and buy products after which they would be inviting others, particularly from their country to join the business to build a chain of people to get more money.
She added, “This is a case of smuggling of migrants, they claimed they have come around to do this networking business that they could easily do in their country.
“They are using the business to defraud, some of them said they paid as much as N600, 000 to register for this networking business.”
She said the illegal migrants would be repatriated back to their countries this week.
