No fewer than 20 Nigerians have been stopped from travelling out of the country through the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos in the last one week by the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Airport Command.
This is as the command again on Tuesday, received another mentally-challenged female Nigerian, Motunde Oluwatobi Victoria, 29 years old from Saudi Arabia.
A source close to the command in Lagos on Wednesday said that most of those stopped from travelling out by the command could not give tangible reasons for wanting to travel out of the country and could not give details of their travels.
According to the source, most of those stopped could not provide documents to support their claims, while it was observed that some of them used travel agents to perfect their papers to travel out of the country by all means.
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The source said that through thorough interrogations by immigration personnel, some unconvincing travellers had been stopped from soiling the image of the country abroad, regretting that most of such travellers end up returning to Nigeria with complicated medical and health issues.
The source advised those willing to travel out of the country by all means to get proper education on job availability in any country they intend to go and should have deep knowledge about such an environment, maintaining that most of them are not knowledgeable about their travel plans.
Meanwhile, the NIS, MMIA Command once again on Wednesday, reunited a mentally-challenged female Nigerian, Motunde Oluwatobi Victoria with her family members at the airport.
It was gathered that Motunde who had been in Saudi Arabia since 2018 and engaged as a house maid in Saudi Arabia, returned aboard Egypt Air at 1:30pm on Tuesday with incoherent speech, which prompted the command to search for her family members.
According to information gathered, once the officials of immigration discovered that Motunde was not mentally-balanced, they searched for her family contact through social media and were able to locate her immediate older sister, Titilope Deborah Babatunde.
A source close to the scene of the incident confided in our correspondent: “The passenger who was born in 1992 came from Saudi Arabia. She came back and was looking very troubled, not cohesive in her statement. Because of the state she was in, immigration decided not to let her go on the streets just like that.
“The service had to take time to search frantically for the family members through the social media because she had no phone number of any of her siblings. She was not in a stable condition. In fact, the immigration had to play the humanitarian role by reuniting her with her family members.”
Also, Motunrayo’s sister, Titilope, lauded officials of immigration at the airport for reuniting her with her sister.
She confirmed that Motunrayo who had been in Saudi Arabia since 2018 was engaged as a house maid in that country, stressing that she got wind of her health challenge about two weeks ago through another Nigerian based in that country.
“I am very grateful to the immigration service, MMIA Command, for reuniting me with my sister. Initially when I received the call, I concluded that it was a scammer at work. What immigration has done has further reinvigorated my belief about Nigeria. It shows that to some extent, we are still secure in Nigeria. If not for the immigration, I will not know that my sister has been brought back to Nigeria. We will still think she was in Saudi Arabia,” she said.
