Nigeria eases border barriers

Press, 9 May 1985, Page 6

Nigeria eases border barriers

NZPA-Reuter Lagos Nigerian border authorities had acted yesterday to speed up the exit of some 700,000 illegal aliens ordered to leave the country, a senior immigration official said. Ahmed Mamman-Lagos, assistant director of the Western Command, said that 1500 people had left in 26 vehicles through Seme, the main border post between Nigeria and Benin, and that the number was expected to double today. The Government has given the aliens until to-

morrow to “regularise their situation” or leave. About 300,000 are said to be Ghanaian.

Nigeria’s land borders, closed for the last year to check smuggling, were reopened for departing aliens on Friday, and thousands of people have massed at border posts to leave.

Mr Mamman-Lagos said that he had instructed his men to process the returnees, mostly Ghanaians and Togolese but including other west African nationals, in groups to avoid delays. People in chartered buses and trucks laden with bag-

gage were being checked by Customs and immigration officials before being handed over to Beninese authorities.

Many of the aliens said that it was unlikely all of them would be cleared by the deadline.

Mr Mamman-Lagos said that he was confident the situation would be better today, but he still had no instructions on what to do if the shift was not completed by tomorrow. Similar operations were underway in more than 25 western Nigerian border posts. Togo had sent four

vehicles for its nationals. Nigeria had asked Ghana to do the same, he said.

In the sprawling Lagos slum of Ijora, where many of the affected Ghanaians lived, hundreds of people boarded trucks to take them home.

One of the organisers, Kwesi Poku, said that he doubted if all the trucks would be able to move out before the deadline. Most of the vehicles were filled with furniture and household items bought by the departing aliens with excess money because they can take only the equivalent

of $47.52 away with them. Togolese police sources said that more than 8000 Ghanaian aliens had crossed the Ghana-Togo frontier post at Aflao on the outskirts of Togo’s capital, Lome.

Togo’s police had escorted the aliens to Aflao from Sanvee Condji on the TogoBenin border, the sources said.

Members of Ghana’s National Mobilisation Committee, set up in 1983 to resettle around one million Ghanaians expelled from Nigeria, welcomed the returnees.