Word: nigerian
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...were hungry, thirsty and penniless," John Cofie Godigah, 38, recalled last week from a hospital bed in Ghana. "I expected the Nigerians to show some feeling. I was mistaken." Godigah had driven his car from Lagos, Nigeria, to a border station on the Benin frontier, joining a caravan of an estimated 250 vehicles filled with foreigners who were being forced to leave the country. When the crowd tried to force its way across the choked border into Benin, Nigerian guards began firing warning shots and tear gas. Godigah was hit. He awoke in a hospital, was released after treatment...
...make their way out of Nigeria. Their expulsion was decreed last month by the ruling military junta headed by Major General Mohammed Buhari. Under the order, an estimated 700,000 illegal immigrants living in Nigeria were given until May 10 to leave the country. When the deadline expired, the Nigerian authorities sealed the borders, making virtual prisoners of all those who had been unable to leave the country by land, sea or air. Many were stranded on clogged roads with little money and no food. Some were herded into a Lagos airport terminal normally used by pilgrims departing for Mecca...
...along Nigeria's western border with Benin. Their mattresses, chairs, plastic containers and enamel cooking pots spilled out of trailers, trucks and minibuses. Many of those who made it across the border had first to surrender any supplies of sugar, milk and detergents--officially described as "essential commodities"--to Nigerian immigration and customs officials. No one was permitted to leave with more than $22 worth of naira, Nigeria's currency. The scenes at posts along Nigeria's borders with Niger and Chad were much the same, as streams of anxious refugees sought to join others who had already left...
...deadline of 6 p.m. local time passed, the Nigerian government sealed all of the country's land borders, trapping hundreds of thousands of refugees. Nigerian Radio, quoting official sources, said the illegal immigrants, many of whom are destitute, would be allowed to leave the country only by land or sea. Shortly before the deadline, refugees on the border with Benin, who had been waiting for four days without food or water, began protesting. Nigerian police waded in with truncheons, and 200 people were injured in the melee. Road accidents have claimed at least 13 lives as refugees have hurried...
Nigeria's governing military junta, headed by Major General Mohammed Buhari, made it clear that it wanted to avoid the "unfortunate incidents" that took place during the 1983 exodus. Even so, many aliens complained last week of harassment by Nigerian authorities, who sometimes illegally confiscated money and possessions. Some refugees had been forced to leave their jobs without collecting wages they were owed. But the Nigerian government appeared to shrug off the chaos that the expulsion brought to so many lives. Said one immigration official: "Countries like Great Britain or France expel illegal aliens on a daily basis...