Edo State Police Command has said it handed over 26 illegal foreigners who were arrested in Ayua near Auchi last week to the Nigeria Immigration Service for interrogation.
According to The PUNCH, Edo State Police Command Public Relations Officer, SP Chidi Nwabuzor, made this known this on Friday in Benin, the state capital.
He said that the aliens were taken to the custody of the Edo State Command of NIS, Benin, on Monday, November 13, 2023.
Nwabuzor explained that when the foreigners were interrogated, it was discovered that they could not effectively communicate in the English Language except to 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 9, 2023.
The Nigerian, who claimed to have lived and worked in Cameroon for years, simply identified himself as 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, has not spoken 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 thorough investigations.
A source at NIS said that the Comptroller of Immigration in Edo has directed that illegal migrants should be screened, profiled and documented.
He said their arrest followed credible intelligence received by the DPO of Jattu divisional police headquarters.
