Last week, Mr. Femi Falana SAN intervened in the controversial debate on deportations of beggars and destitute by the Lagos state government. Apart from arguing that internal deportations constitute an infringement of the fundamental rights of the affected citizens Mr Falana provided irrefutable evidence to prove that many other state governments are involved in the illegal practice. In exposing the hypocrisy of the Anambra state government over the matter Mr Falana pointed out that Governor Peter Obi actually deported 29 beggars to their home states of Ebonyi and Akwa Ibom states in December, 2011.
Last week, Mr. Femi Falana SAN intervened in the controversial debate on deportations of beggars and destitute by the Lagos state government. Apart from arguing that internal deportations constitute an infringement of the fundamental rights of the affected citizens Mr Falana provided irrefutable evidence to prove that many other state governments are involved in the illegal practice. In exposing the hypocrisy of the Anambra state government over the matter Mr Falana pointed out that Governor Peter Obi actually deported 29 beggars to their home states of Ebonyi and Akwa Ibom states in December, 2011.
The civil rights lawyer therefore called on the federal and state governments to develop a rehabilitation and resettlement policy for beggars and destitute instead of deporting and dumping them in their states of origin. So far, none of the state governments indicted in the timely article has denied involvement in the illegal deportation of the poor in order to keep the state capitals clean. However, two lawyers attempted but failed woefully to controvert the views expressed by Mr Falana on the dangerous policy .
In his highly contentious article published in the Premium Times last week Mr. Jiti Ogunye challenged the "inappropriateness" of the word 'deportation' in describing the forceful removal and expulsion of poor people from Lagos and other urban centres in the country. According to the lawyer "Deportation in the context in which the word has been used is a malapropism ... as the affected persons are not transported out of Lagos State and sent into exile by expulsion, as a Country would do to illegal aliens or foreigners." Is Mr Ogunye really saying that a country can send aliens or foreigners into exile by transportation?
Another lawyer, Mr Idowu Ohiose wrote from Canada through Saharareporters. In reaction to Mr. Falana's statement that King Jaja Opobo was deported by the British colonial regime in 1885 Mr. Ohiose claimed that "King Jaja was banished; not deported. In fact, he was 'exiled' but not 'deported'. Simply speaking, 'to banish' (to exile) isn’t the same as 'to deport'. While the former means the removal of a person to another part of a country by authoritative decree, the latter refers to lawful expulsion of an unwanted alien to another country. The colonialists banished (exiled) King Jaja to British West Indies on the reasoning that both Opobo and West Indies were part of British territories."
Although Mr. Falana did not define deportation he referred to the notorious case of Alhaji Shugaba, a Nigerian citizen who was deported to Chad by the Shehu Shagari administration in the second republic. He also quoted various provisions of the relevant laws to argue against internal deportation by the federal and state governments. The definitions of 'deportation' provided by both Messers Ogunye and Ohiose was wrongly limited to the expulsion of an alien from a country. In the Collins English Dictionary, 'deportation' means the act of expelling an alien from a country or the act of transporting someone from his country; banishment.
Even the Chambers Dictionary referred to by Mr. Ogunye defined 'deport' to include 'transport' or 'exile'. In other words, the transportation of a citizen from one part of a country to another or sending a citizen into exile from his country is also known as deportation. According to Wikipedia, "Deportation can also happen within a state, when (for example) an individual or a group of people is forcibly resettled to a different part of the country. If ethnic groups are affected by this, it may also be referred to as population transfer."
Wikipedia recalled that " Deportation is an ancient practice: Khosrau I, Sassanid King of Persia, deported 292,000 citizens, slaves, and conquered people to the new city of Ctesiphon in 542 C.E. Britain deported religious objectors and criminals to America in large numbers before 1776, and transported them to Australia between 1788 and 1868."
With respect to the former Soviet Union it is said that over 6 million people were victims of "deportations of 'anti-Soviet' categories of population, often classified as 'enemies of workers,' deportations of entire nationalities, labor force transfer, and organized migrations in opposite directions to fill the ethnically cleansed territories."
One of the several deportations of citizens which took place in the United States which is relevant to our discourse was the Bisbee deportation of about 1,300 striking mine workers, their supporters, and citizen bystanders by 2,000 vigilantes on July 12, 1917. Wikipedia reported it thus, "The workers and others were kidnapped in the U.S. town of Bisbee, Arizona and held at a local baseball park. They were then loaded onto cattle cars and transported 200 miles (320 km) for 16 hours through the desert without food or water. The deportees were unloaded at Hermanas, New Mexico, without money or transportation, and warned not to return to Bisbee."
No doubt, foreigners and not citizens are now subjected to deportation in civilized nations. Even before aliens are deported their fundamental right to fair hearing is respected. Hence extradition proceedings are conducted before deportation. Today, the Canadian Government cannot legally deport Mr Idowu Ohiose to Nigeria without observing his rights to liberty and fair hearing. But in Nigeria, some citizens who are wanted on suspicion that they have committed criminal offences in the United States are crudely grabbed on the streets or in their homes in any part of the country by our immigration officials and expelled from the country without going through extradition proceedings locally as required by the Extadition Act.
A few years ago, President Kenneth Kaunda was almost deported from Zambia after ruling the country for 27 years when President Frederick Chiluba claimed that the old man's parents hailed from Malawi and not zambia. If Alassen Quattara (now President of Cote d'Ivoire) had not fled to France he would have been deported to Burkina Faso in 1995 when a court ruled that his mother was a Burkinabe. Before then Nigeria had deported Alhaji Darman Shugaba to Chad on the ground that his parents did not come from any ethnic group indigenous to Nigeria. It is not uncommon these days for poor people to be subjected to mass arrest, detention, deportation and dumping by many state governments due to economic or political reasons. In the process all their fundamental rights are recklessly abused.
Therefore, it is totally misleading on the part of any lawyer to say that it is "inapproprate" to describe the illegal expulsion of beggars and destitute from Lagos to their states of origin as deportation. I will advise both Mr. Ohiose familiarise himself history of deportations around the world for his intervention to add value to the debate. However, let me join Mr. Falana in asking the relevant authorities in Nigeria to develop urban renewal programmes that will rehabilitate and resettle all beggars. If the very poor state of osun can employ 20,000 youths and pay monthly stipends to the elderly on a monthly basis and resettle beggars and the destitute without deporting them to their states of origin other states in Nigeria should reorder their priorities to make provisions for all poor people.
Olanrewaju Suraju
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });