Report says Lagos Airport received 4,281 Nigerian deportees in first half of2017

A report has revealed that no fewer than 4,281 Nigerians deported from various countries in the first half of 2017 came to the country through the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Ikeja, Lagos.
The figure is apart from those Nigerians who were repatriated through other airports or other numerous channels within the period under review. The report indicated that those deported were divided into chartered and regular flights.
The document from the Ministry of Interior Affairs, revealed that between January and June, 2017, 2,251 Nigerians were deported through chartered flights, mainly from Libya and some European countries.
A total of 1,321 of the deportees were males while the remaining 930 were females.
Among those deported, a
Majority of those deported from Europe, South Africa and other countries within the continent came in through regular flights. The report put their total figures at 2,030. According to the document, 1,502 males and 528 females were deported in the first half of the year.
The report states: “Some of these deportees engaged in criminal activities in their host countries. For these sets of people, they were handed over to the Nigeria Police for further investigation and prosecution.
“Also, some of them were caught were they tried to traffic banned substances to various countries in Europe, North America and other African countries. For these sets of people, they were immediately handed over to the officials of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) at the Lagos airport, but for those with civil offenses, they were given to the National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons (NAPTIP).”
The document further revealed that in the first half of the year, 691,954 passengers, both Nigerians and foreigners, used the facilities at MMIA to depart to various destinations from the country. 519,215 of these numbers were Nigerians and majorly males while another 179,739 were foreigners departing the country.
Also, within the period, 550,988 passengers arrived Nigeria through the international wing of the Lagos airport.
The breakdown revealed that 392,237 of them were Nigerians while the other 158,751 were foreigners from various countries.