Following rumour of mass raids by the Unitrd Kingdom Border Agency and Immigration, about 500 Nigerians were on Tuesday deported from the United Kingdom.
The plane conveying the deportees arrived Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, in the morning.
According to the BBC, they were brought into Nigeria on a chartered flight from London. Some of them are said to be stranded at the airport.
“One person told me that he was arrested by British police and was not allowed to even take his belongings before being deported,” the BBC said in its report.
“A few of them who say they don’t have relatives here are stranded in the airport.”
The UK had earlier stated its plan to deport 29,000 Nigerians and had conveyed this message to the Nigerian Embassy in the United Kingdom.
The decision of the British government to send away Nigerians living in its country illegally, has generated controversy. Many of those deported were said to be arrested at various locations, without their belongings, while some were given away by their landlords, as it is now mandatory to present your valid visa to property owners, before you can be allowed to pay or occupy them.
Alexia Thomas, a Nigeria-born British human rights activist and chairman of Commonwealth Liberation Party (TCLP), a registered political party in England, has embarked on a massive campaign to protest the decision.
In a statement issued on Monday, Thomas, who gave UK an ultimatum of two weeks to rescind on the decision, described the act as an attempt to “depower colored people”.
“The United Kingdom ruling government is given up till the 7th of December, 2015, to pronounce mandate to release Nigerian citizens from immigration detention centres in the UK unconditionally without compromise, or else by 9th December, 2015, they (British government) should expect Nigerian citizens to boycott British products and produce,” the statement read.
“The Nigerian people will refuse to patronise British airlines and Nigerian citizens will refuse to visit British embassy or submit applications nor pay them any fees.
“The British government intention is a premeditated attempt to ‘depower colored people civilization enrichment’.
“Their action is war against humanity. The Queen is called upon to caution the Conservative ruling government before they bring shame to the British Kingdom as their actions to dehumanise citizens from the Commonwealth nations and treat them as third class citizens by denying them equality means third world War is looming.
“The TCLP pronounces that the world is yet to recover from the second world war of 1935, that saw 15 million Jews and others lost their lives, where Jews were massacred, 100 million citizens of the world displaced and made homeless.”
