Fears In Lagos Over Influx Of Aliens In Neighbourhood

                      

    

ALI, Mamoudu and Musa are citizens of Niger Republic. But more than being citizens of the same country, the three young men are born of the same parents. Musa, the eldest of them, was the first to arrive Nigeria about seven years ago. 

The journey, from his village in Niger Republic to Lagos took him about two weeks, with stopovers in Katsina, Ibadan and Shagamu. Musa said his journey to Nigeria was without any interruption until he got to Kamba, a town at the border between the two countries.

“If you are coming from Niger to Nigeria, you will get to Kamba where you will pay some people who will give you some papers. They said the papers would enable you to enter Nigeria,” he said. Musa, who has no formal education, said between the time he left his village in Niger Republic and the time he arrived Lagos, he engaged in more than three different jobs. 

He said: “In Ibadan, I carried loads for people. After I had made some money, I moved to Shagamu where I sold water with trucks.

It was in Lagos that I started selling provisions after securing a job as a gateman (security guard).” Soon after he settled down in Lagos, Musa’s two younger brothers followed suit, making their ways into Lagos in a similar fashion. Today, the three of them live in Bariga area of Lagos. While Musa runs a provision store that also serves as home for more than eight others, Ali and Mamoudu hawk water in jerry cans.

There are fears that the influx of foreigners from neighbouring countries like Mali, Chad, Niger and Cameroun provides a ready market for insurgents to recruit as foot soldiers. But Musa and his siblings swore that they have nothing to do with any terrorist group, saying they only came to Nigeria in search of greener pastures.

But not many residents of the area appeared to be convinced by the claim made by the brothers. Adeleke (surname withheld), who resides on a popular street in Akoka area of Lagos, said the residents’ fears had been raised by the realisation that the aliens in the area were increasing in number every day.

“We started to notice that these people were increasing in number every day. At a time, they were virtually the ones in command of commercial motorcycle business popularly called okada in the area. They later ventured into other businesses, which eventually attracted the attention of the people.

“It was also observed that they lived in a particular building where one of them was employed as a gateman.” The fear of insurgency being the beginning of wisdom, the residents met recently and ordered the owner of the house in question to do something about its occupants, following which the number of aliens in the house was reduced to six.

Until about two weeks ago, no one in the Agbelekale neighbourhood in Abule Egba area of the city knew that Ishaq Gumsu was not a Nigerian. Everyone thought he was an indigene of Kano State, but they soon discovered that they were wrong when Ishaq was accosted by men of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) on the neighbourhood Ekoro Road as he was returning from a nearby market where he had gone to purchase some provisions.

“Oga, please, I am a Nigerien, but I have been staying in Lagos for close to 15 years,” he reportedly pleaded with Immigration officials. “I have brothers in Birnni Kebbi and I visit there twice in a year to take care of our cattle.” But the concerned residents, who spoke with one of our correspondents, expressed disappointment that the Immigration officials who accosted Ishaq let him off.

Ishaq himself told our reporter that he had at different times lived in parts of Lagos like Ilasamaja, Isolo and Mushin where he worked variously as a shoe shiner and water vendor before relocating to Abule Egba. He said: “Throughout my stay in those places, I did not live in any rented apartment. And up till now, I live in a small kiosk where I sell provisions and also work as a shoemaker. “I was an itinerant shoemaker and I made some money with which I set up my cattle business and provision kiosk.

I have a wife and five children in my village in Niger Republic. They treat me like a king each time I visit home.” But Ishaq is not the only alien in the neighbourhood. There are many others from Niger, Chad, Mali and even Cameroon in parts of Abule Egba, Meiran, Ajasa, Command and Alagbado areas of the city. Meiran, a suburb of Lagos, boasts a horde of aliens, including a Malian named Ahmadu Traore and his two brothers, who work as commercial motorcycle operators. Asked what his mission is in Lagos, Traore, who said about 50 of his kinsmen live in the area, said: “There is no better country to work and make money than Nigeria. I make good money and live relatively well with my brothers.

There are about 50 of our kinsmen in this community and we hold regular meetings for the purpose of bonding. But most of us work as okada riders, cart pushers and shoemakers.” In the Akute area of Lagos, the story of the three brothers is replicated in Audu, another citizen of Niger Republic who came to Nigeria through Kamba, near Birini Kebbi, Kebbi State about four years ago. According to Audu, entering Nigeria from Niger is very easy once you are willing to part with some money at the border.

He believes that Nigeria is the best place for him because the environment is friendly and there are job opportunities. He said: “Before I came to Nigeria, many of our people who had come here told us about how good and friendly the country was.

That was why I decided to come here myself.” Audu, like other aliens our reporter spoke with, was initially reluctant to admit that he is a citizen of Niger Republic. He claimed to be an indigene of Kebbi State until he was sure that our reporter was not an immigration official.

He said some of them were being constantly harassed by real and fake immigration officials. Audu, who spoke smattering English, said he learnt the much he could speak of the language when he got to Lagos. Strangely, he said he had learnt to distance himself from Malians and other Nigeriens in the country to avoid being haunted by immigration officials and the suspicion with which Nigerians now view the aliens among them on account of the activities of the Boko Haram sect.

“Now, I see myself more as a Nigerian than a Nigerien. Life is too good here to get myself involved in the shameless activities of Boko Haram,” he said. But with the security challenges confronting Nigeria, Audu fears that he might no longer be safe in the country. He said he had personally restricted his movements in the city because he feared that he might be picked up by the security agents.

“Before now, I felt very free to go to any part of Lagos I liked. But the Boko Haram people have spoilt everything for us. The people now fear us, and some even call us Boko Haram.” Kamba as ‘free’ entry point So, what makes Kamba tick as an illegal entry point into Nigeria from the northern part of the country? According to Ibrahim, who ekes out a living by carrying loads for people at the popular Mile 12 Market, which also serves as his home, there are too many entry points into the country for illegal immigrants from Niger Republic. But he identified Kamba as the most patronised of the entry points.

Kamba is the headquarters of Dandi Local Government Area of Kebbi State. It has an area of 42,003 square kilometres, while the 2006 census puts its population at 144,273. “There are many routes through which we can enter Nigeria. You know that the border area is very large. But most of us come through Kamba and Cotonou,” Ibrahim said. Asked why he left his country for Nigeria without any feasible means of livelihood, Ibrahim, the first in a family of 15 children, said his father is a subsistence farmer with five wives.

He said: “My father has five wives and 15 children. I am the first born and none of us is educated. All of us helped my father on the farm, but there was no money. So, all the children had to go out to make money. A friend of mine came to Nigeria and returned to our village with many good things. He also told us that we could make it if we come here. That was why I left my village and came to Nigeria.” Ibrahim has two wives and six children.

But his dream of hitting it big in Nigeria is under severe threat as a result of the security situation in the country. “People now fear us when we go out. That is why we no longer go far away from where we live. Please, tell them that we are not Boko Haram,” he pleaded. But Akeebu, a Nigerian and ‘hustler’ at the Mile 12 Market, lamented that the activities of illegal aliens at the market and its environs had given the rest of them in the area a bad name. He said:

“These people are giving us bad names around here. Most of the bad things that happen here are perpetrated by the illegal aliens but the people would think we are the ones. If you come to this place at night, you would see more than 500 of them sleeping on the bridge. Now the bridge is bad because of their activities.” Sixty-six-year-old Ibrahim came to Nigeria as a young man more than 30 years ago.

While acknowledging the fears of Nigerians about the activities of illegal aliens in the country, Ibrahim recalled that the situation was different when he first arrived in Nigeria. He said while no entry papers were required at the time he came into Nigeria, things have since changed, particularly because it was discovered that many of his compatriots were being killed and many others were disappearing without any trace.

“That was when the Nigerien government insisted that before any of its citizens left the country, they must obtain the right papers. “At a point, Nigerian immigration officials were arresting and detaining illegal immigrants into Nigeria, and many of our people were victims. It became worrisome when some of our people were disappearing without any trace. Some people, who were not Immigration officials, were taking advantage of our people.

This attracted the attention of our government when the cases of abducted Nigeriens became rampant. “Many of our people died on the Apapa/Oshodi Expressway while trying to run away from immigration officials. But, thank God, things have changed. We have leaders in different communities in Nigeria, so whenever anything happens, we come together as a family.

That is why I’m telling you that it will be difficult for any of us to be a member of the Boko Haram sect. “Although I am often referred to as a Boko Haram man, it does not bother me. Funny enough, most Nigerians don’t even know the difference between Nigerians and Nigeriens.

The only exception is the immigration people at the border.” Ibrahim said that while he had had to cope with many problems as an immigrant, he would not subscribe to anybody becoming a member of the Boko Haram sect. “It is evil, barbaric, primitive and wicked,” he said.

A visit to Ketu, a suburb of Lagos, revealed how much some of the aliens have had to grapple with accommodation problems. An overhead bridge in the area has virtually caved in as a result of pressure from the large number of illegal immigrants who sleep on it on a daily basis. As soon as night beckons, the pedestrian bridge begins to play host to the immigrants.

By 10 pm, the entire space on the bridge would have been taken over by the hordes of illegal immigrants. Interestingly, some residents our correspondents spoke with did not seem to nurse the belief that the influx of illegal immigrants into the country constitutes a clear and present danger. Some respondents said they had not bothered to find out the backgrounds of the people they employed as security men. Eze Okoye lives in a four-bedroom flat in the Yaba area of the state.

He shares the compound with three other tenants. But while the four tenants know one another fairly well, none of them knows anything about the the security man employed to guard the house. Asked what he knew about his security man, Okoye said: “This question is tough o. Would you believe that we have never bothered to carry out any background check on our security man? All we know is that he is Hausa and his name is Musa. I must confess that we don’t even know if he is a Nigerian or not.

” Okoye and his co-tenants are not alone in this. Cases abound of domestic servants who, having worked and gained the trust of their masters and madams, cart away the very property they were employed to watch over. But generally speaking, the rising number of immigrants in Lagos has heightened the fears of the people, particularly as they now appear to dominate okada business and other menial jobs.

While most of them may be involved in legal activities and may indeed have documents backing their stay in the country, the activities of the Boko Haram insurgents and the belief that many of their members may not be Nigerians have heightened fears. On the streets of Lagos, they have become a constant feature with their wheelbarrows filled with assorted fruits as they go round the city hawking their wares.

This form of trade has no doubt driven fears into the people, bearing in mind the revelation that one of the attackers at Nyaya Park in Abuja might have carried out the attack with a wheelbarrow filled with fruits embedded with explosives. The fear is further heightened by a recent special investigation report by a BBC reporter in Niger Republic, who found that the country had become a fertile ground for the recruitment of insurgents. According to the report, the Boko Haram sect pays the poor recruits about $3,000 to become their members.

In the face of grinding poverty, experts fear that young Nigeriens might be easy catch for Boko Haram once it dangles such money before them. But the Nigeria Immigration Service is not folding its arm, in the face of the security challenges. Speaking to The Nation, Mr. CPP Obuah, Assistant Comptroller, said the service is working hard to ensure that the nation’s borders are secure.

While disagreeing with the ‘porous border’ tag used by the media to describe the nation’s borders, Obuah said the right word to describe the borders is ‘expansive’. Many people describe our borders as porous, but the truth is that what we have is expansive borders,” he said. Obuah said the service, under the leadership of the Comptroller General, Mr. David Paradana, has done a lot to ensure the safety of the borders.

According to him, part of the measures put in place by the service was the introduction of a special force unit. “Shortly after he came into office, the Comptroller General set the safety of the borders as his priority. To do this, he requested for the establishment of a border patrol force, and his request was granted.

The first batch of 1,000 men of the special force unit graduated only last week. And as I speak with you, these men are being posted to the border posts across the country. “These specially-trained men will henceforth help in monitoring the activities of people entering the country illegally.

The idea is that if anybody tries to enter the country through the many bush paths, he or she will surely encounter the men of the special force unit, even if such person has escaped the border posts.

“Talking about the activities of our men in the hinterland, the surveillance and monitoring unit is engaged in the monitoring of people who may have entered the country illegally. Whenever they encounter such people, they are questioned to ascertain whether they have valid papers or not. And if they are found to lack the necessary papers, they are taken back to their country.

“All these are a routine exercise being carried out by the service as part of the ways to make sure that our borders are safe, especially in the face of the current security challenges facing us. Training and retraining our men and officers are going on every day. Having said all these, I can assure you that the service is doing its best to keep our borders safe.”

The Special Adviser to Governor Fashola on Information and Strategy, Mr. Lateef Raji, told The Nation that the government is collaborating with security agencies and members of the public on the need to join hands to ensure the safety of the city. He said: “There is a basic and fundamental issue that guides all Nigerians. You can’t just pounce on Nigerian citizens; it is part of their fundamental human right to move from one part of the country to the other, except when they become a nuisance.

So, it is always difficult to look at a person and identify such as an alien except the Nigeria Immigration Service intercepts such. Issues of immigration solely rest with the Federal Government and it is their responsibility to actually monitor the movement of aliens. But for us as a government, we can’t label anybody as alien.

“What we do is for the agencies in charge to go out and monitor the activities and influx of people in a particular area. The security agencies are doing this and members of the public have been very helpful. The public notify us whenever they see any strange gathering, and we have responded immediately. We keep direct tab in those areas. “The Nigerian legal system assumes that you are innocent until proven guilty.

It is not unusual that some of these criminals in the guise of riding okada commit serious crime, but it is also not fair for government to pick on them while doing their normal job. But what government is doing is that we are paying very keen attention. We have, in our public enlightenment campaign, notified citizens to alert us about any suspicious movement or item found in their neigbourhood.

“All the phone numbers of the DPOs and the Commissioner of Police, are on our website. We are also going to print this out so that the average person will know who to call. The immigration now has to be alert in their duties. It is their primary duty not to allow aliens come into the country.

But we are trying to reach out to them and anywhere we see such people, we will notify the immigration service.” In the same vein, the Hausa community at Mile 12 Market is not losing sleep over the threat of insecurity in Lagos. Speaking to The Nation, Alhaji Shehu Usman, the Financial Secretary of the group, urged residents to put their minds at rest, assuring that insurgents sect cannot operate in Lagos.

Usman said: “We have told the people that there is no need to fear. Inside the Mile 12 market, we are organised and have the machinery that ensures that we know everybody inside the market. For instance, I can tell you the name of the person in a particular shed. “In the same way, we have leaders in each section of the market who reports any strange incident to the leadership of the market.

Even those who bring foodstuffs from the North are monitored very well. We know all those who come in or go out of the market. So the issue of Boko Haram can never happen here.”

A chieftain of the Motorcycle Riders Association of Lagos State (MOALS),Oja Oba Unit, Abule Egba, who identified himself simply as Comrade Niyi, said: “We have many Chadians and Nigeriens among us but we scrutinise them very well before admitting them as members.

Initially, we didn’t take them because we feared that they might elope with the motorcycles given to them by owners, but we have since relaxed our rules to accommodate them when it became clear that they are only seeking legitimate means of livelihood.”

Written by  Gbenga ADERANTI, Segun AJIBOYE and Kunle AKINRINADE of the Nation Newspaper