TWENTY-FOUR Nigerians who were deported from Equatorial Guinea arrived at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos yesterday with tales of woe.

The deportees, who on arrival at the Lagos airport narrated the hostile experience they suffered while in detention for two months in the Central African nation, recalled how they were hounded into prisons over internal crisis that rocked the country.

According to the deportees, they were flown into the country after they had been abandoned by the Nigerian embassy in Equitorial Guinea.

Spokesman of the group, Polycarp Nnamdi Nnani, who is a sailor, accused the Nigerian embassy in the country of showing insensitivity to their plight, while they were subjected to injustice in detention.

Nnani, who alleged that their boats and money worth millions of Naira were seized even when they had valid documents for their business and stay in the country, however, said that the Nigeria/Malabo Boat Operators Association was taking the matter to the African Court of Justice to seek redress for the violation of their rights.

Nnani could not quantify what the deportees suffered, but he put the estimates of the boats and other engines seized at over N200 million even as they were demanding $100 million as damages to both the boat owners and the detainees.

The deportees constituted the second batch of about 100 Nigerians already deported from the country.

Nnani said: "We appeal to the African Court of Justice to cause the government of Equatorial Guinea to release the remaining 104 Nigerians they are retaining along with their travelling documents, and seaman's passports. We seek the release of the 11 boats complete with all equipment and accessories as well as the refund of CFA 200,000,000, which the team of Equatorial Guinea Police, Navy and Army removed from our boats and for which they acknowledged only CFA 54 million. We also ask for the release of 15 corpses of Nigerians they killed for proper burial in Nigeria, as well as the payment of $100 million to the boat owners and detainees."

He continued: "We are sailors, I am Nnamdi Nnani, I am the captain of Don Wisdom, all of us here are sailors, we left Nigeria for Malabo at various dates. I left with my crew on February 13, 2009, from Ebunum in Akwa Ibom State. We have been there for days, for about four months.

"On February 17, 2009, in the late hours of the night, we were woken up by sporadic gunshots, emanating from the presidency, because the presidency is very close to the place where we normally park our boats. Eventually, when we were woken up, we saw bullets flying over-head. Because it was night, we had to take cover.

"The shooting continued, about 6.30 a.m., the first naval boat, a small boat with eight occupants, asked us to get out of our hiding place, to get the police. They ordered the same boat to follow them to sail down to the shore. Later, some military men came and we identified ourselves as sailors, with valid documents. Another boat with military men came and ordered us out of our boat, wielding guns, requesting us to comply or they will shoot us.

"They ordered us out and after several minutes, they tied us with heavy ropes and they marched us to the central police station. Hours later, they detained us at the police station and from that date till today, we have been in detention. We were over 71 including some Camerounians that left the boat for the police station. We had finished off-loading and we were getting ready to return to Cameroun when the incident occurred. We have been in detention ever since; nobody explained to us why we were detained and they said that they were carrying out investigations.

"After the shooting, nobody knew who did it and one Nigerian was paraded on Gabonese television as the suspected assassin, that did the shooting. The man claimed that he was not responsible for the alleged shooting, he even lost his wife in detention."



http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/news/article04//indexn2_html?pdate=160409&ptitle=24%20Nigerians%20deported%20from%20Equatorial%20Guinea

na wa oo! its so sad do you blame the eg. guinea govt. they know that we dont have a govt. that cares for its people. imagine the nigerian embassy abandoning them to their own fate. until our own govt. starts to show it cares for its citizens we will continue to be subjected to all these imhumane treatments.

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