The Kano State Command of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has launched operation pack-and-go against illegal immigrants in the commercial city of Kano as 400 of them have been arrested in an operation that started Friday morning.
The mopping exercise which is expected to end on Monday is targeted at peasants and street urchins from neighbouring Niger, Chad, Cameroon, Mali and Burkina Faso who exploit porous borders in northern states to infiltrate into the country.
Pointblanknews.com investigations reveal that these illegal migrants are mostly used by enemies of the country to perpetrate terrorism and other violent attacks which has left the North vulnerable to economic destruct and wanton insecurity.
The State Comptroller of the Nigeria Immigration Service, Alhaji Hamisu Maishanu told newsmen on Saturday that the exercise of mopping up the illegal immigrants started on Friday and will end on Monday, out of which 400 of them were arrested.
He said the Command embarked on the screening exercise out of which 384 of them are Nigeriens, while 16 others are Chadians, adding that they will all be repatriated to their various countries.
According to him, the Service will not allow illegal aliens to gain entry into the country without proper documentation and data bank because they are just killing the economy.
Maishanu warned that any illegal immigrant caught without relevant documents would henceforth be repatriated to his or her country with immediate effect.
He explained that the exercise would be a continuous one in line with the new leadership of the service under Mr David Paradang to flush out illegal immigrants from the country.
This is a mop up exercise of illegal immigrants to complement what the Federal Government is doing under the current situation.
Maishanu said: “We will take the photograph and the bio-metric data of all those arrested so that we can identify them whenever they find their way into the country.
Furthermore, Maishanu would also be extended to all the 44 Local Government Areas of the State to rid Kano of all illegal immigrants.
He however called on the people of the state not to panic on the mop up exercise whenever armed securitymen are raiding their area, adding that it is meant to ensure that those immigrants with valid documents were allowed to stain the state.
The Comptroller warned that any illegal immigrant who returned without legal documents would be arrested and prosecuted.
In an interview with one of the arrested 20-year old illegal immigrant, who gave his name as Adamu, said he came to Kano two weeks ago in search of fortunes but at the end I became a water vendor, but today I have been arrested and to be sincere with you I have no documents to back up my legal stay in the country because we Nigeriens are poorly educated and that was why I have nod document.