The Nigerian Immigration Service has strongly denied a social media report that alleged some of its operatives, who were supposedly manning unauthorized checkpoints at the Badagry-Seme border, had been apprehended by officers from the Inspector General of Police Special Squad.
According to the viral report, the IGP squad pursued and detained certain police officers and immigration personnel stationed at checkpoints suspected of being established for the purpose of extorting citizens.
In response, Emmanuel Gbemudu, the Comptroller of Border Patrol at Seme, expressed his disbelief in an interview with our correspondent on Friday.
He refuted the allegation and clarified that none of his team members had been arrested.
Gbemudu emphasized that the border patrol operates at four designated points, and the accusation of operating illegal checkpoints is entirely false.
He emphasized, “No immigration personnel have been arrested.
I witnessed the entire incident yesterday, and it left me astonished.
The Border Patrol operates at four well-known checkpoints, and the notion of illegal checkpoints is baseless. This is nothing but fabricated news.”
Similarly, Douglas Audu, the Comptroller of the Immigration Service at the Seme border Command, conducted a thorough investigation into the claim and declared it to be unfounded. Audu remarked, “The report lacks any semblance of truth.
To me, it’s a concoction of misinformation. No individuals were detained within or near our jurisdiction.
We conducted a comprehensive inquiry and confirmed that no arrests were made.”
Audu continued, “We oversee two distinct commands in this area: the Seme border command and the Lagos state border patrol command.
I have personally conducted an exhaustive inquiry and can affirm that no arrests occurred at either of these commands.”
Despite multiple attempts to reach the Force Public Relations Officer, Muyiwa Adejobi, to verify the alleged arrest of immigration personnel, all efforts were in vain.
Calls to his phone went unanswered, and he had yet to respond to messages sent to him at the time of compiling this report.
