FG Refutes Claims of Abandoning Deported Nigerians in Ghana

Government Clarifies Deportation Process for Nigerians

The Nigerian federal government has denied allegations that Nigerians deported from the United States were left stranded after being allegedly transferred to Togo by Ghanaian authorities. Instead, the government emphasized that the returnees are currently undergoing profiling procedures in accordance with international protocols.

Through the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), the government stated that the deportees are not stranded but are being processed as part of a special procedure due to their unique circumstances. Abdur-Rahman Balogun, NiDCOM’s Director of Media, Public Relations and Protocols, explained this to Sunday PUNCH in an interview on Saturday.

“We are aware that some Nigerians were deported, but they are not stranded; they are being profiled because their own deportation is special, unlike others. Nigeria did not abandon them (deportees); there was a deal that Ghana agreed with the US to accept that responsibility to receive deportees from the US who are from the West African sub-region.”

Balogun added that after arriving in Ghana, the authorities took their own citizens and dispatched others through Togo. “I think they are going through profiling, not that they are stranded; they are still undergoing the process of profiling,” he said.

Allegations of Being Abandoned in Togo

A Nigerian man who was deported from the US accused Ghanaian authorities of secretly transferring him and other West Africans across the border and abandoning them in Togo. The deportee, speaking to the BBC under anonymity, claimed that he, along with two Togolese and one Liberian, was moved from a military camp in Ghana under the pretext of being relocated to better accommodation but was instead “dumped” in Togo.

“They did not take us through the main border; they took us through the back door. They paid the police there and dropped us in Togo,” he alleged. He lamented that he had been left stranded in Togo with no formal handover to the Togolese authorities.

Four of the deportees—three Nigerians and a Liberian—have since checked into a hotel in Lomé, the Togolese capital just across the border. With no documents, they are relying on hotel staff to receive financial assistance from relatives abroad.

“We are struggling to survive in Togo without any documentation,” the man explained. “None of us has family in Togo. We’re just stuck in a hotel. Right now, we’re just trying to survive until our lawyers can help us with this situation.”

He described the conditions at the Ghanaian military camp as “deplorable,” noting that life there was hard and that they had asked for better place, medication, healthcare, and water.

The Ghana-US Deal and Deportation Policy

The deportees, 14 of them, were the first batch of immigrants ejected from the US under President Donald Trump’s controversial “third-country deportation” policy. This policy allows the US to send deportees to foreign nations other than their own, particularly when the individual’s country of origin refuses to take them back.

Ghana became the first West African country to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the US government to accept people deported from the US as part of Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration. President John Mahama stated that nationals from various West African countries would now be taken in following a bilateral agreement with the US.

Speaking in an interview on ChannelOne Tv, Ghanaian’s Foreign Minister Samuel Ablakwa said: “We have great relations with the Americans. Recently, we have had an understanding with them to accept West African nationals who have been pouring into our country.”

“Let us be clear, we did not agree to this because we agree with President Trump’s immigration policies. We are not doing the US a favour, we are doing our fellow Africans a favour, we are offering them refuge, we are offering them succour, we are offering them hope, we want them to come back home and be comfortable,” Ablakwa added.

Profiled Before Return to Nigeria

According to NiDCOM, the deportees are not ordinary returnees but persons already convicted of crimes in the United States or found guilty of immigration violations, hence their continued stay in Togo for profiling before being allowed back into Nigeria.

“Those people who got deported are those who the US had already convicted for one crime or the other. They are not the kind of people that we just allow to enter the society like that; we have to profile them before their entrance,” Balogun said.

He clarified that deportations from the US were not new, recalling that a previous set of Nigerians were repatriated directly to Lagos two months ago. “That is not the first deportation; we have an interagency committee in charge of deportation, especially for the US, and we have received the set of deportees from the US. They did not come through Ghana; they came in through Ikeja (Murtala Muhammed International Airport), Lagos. We received them some two months ago, so the one in Ghana is the new set,” Balogun said.

Legal Action Against Governments

Meanwhile, lawyers for the deportees stranded in Togo have started legal action against both the US and Ghanaian governments, claiming their rights were violated. According to BBC, they had previously been held in a US detention facility before being flown out on a US military plane in shackles, their lawyers said.

When contacted, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kimiebi Ebienfa, told one of our correspondents, “I will find out from the consular section in Ghana if there is any official report on that.”

Efforts by Sunday PUNCH to contact one of the lawyers, Oliver Barker-Vormawor, were unsuccessful as mails and messages sent to him on his social media platforms were not responded to as of the time of filing this report.