According to Jerry, his crime was assisting an applicant with his online passport renewal application.
A resident of Ibadan, the Oyo state capital, Eguavoen Jerry, who owns a computer business centre, has accused some officers of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Ibadan Command of physically assaulting, detaining and extorting money from him.
According to Jerry, his crime was assisting an applicant with his online passport renewal application.
Jerry narrated to SaharaReporters that on Sunday, June 30, a customer came to his shop to do his online passport renewal application and as a computer business centre operator, popularly known as cyber cafe operator, he did the online application, made payment and booked an appointment for biometric capturing successfully for his customer.
He said, “I couldn't print out the documents generated by the system for his biometric capturing due to faulty printer but I saved the documents and promised to get them printed for him before the date of his capturing was July 3, 2024.”
Jerry said that on July 3, he printed the documents as promised and delivered them to his customer at his chosen place, which was the NIS Command at Agodi in Ibadan.
He said, “He called me a few minutes later and said that the immigration officer who was to attend to him requested that he invite the person who assisted him with the application, so I hurried back to meet up with him.
“The immigration officer started asking who gave me the right to assist the applicant with the application. He said it is either the applicant does it himself or contacts an immigration officer to help him with it.
“I thought he was joking until he called another officer and they dragged me to an officer in another building where some of their superiors were.
“To my surprise, the senior officers asserted that only an immigration officer is allowed to assist an applicant with the online application. They accused me of committing an offence which is punishable by 10 years imprisonment or N2 million fine or both.”
He alleged that one of the immigration officers, O.I. Olumbori, showed him his phone and asked him to read a section of the Immigration Act, claiming he had violated it. The officer, who identified himself as a lawyer, asserted that he was certain Jerry had committed an offence under the Act.
Further narrating his ordeal, Jerry said, “They asked me to take off my shoes, drop my bag and then they detained me. I asked to speak with a provost but they started beating me up.
“I asked that they document the content of my bag, but they didn't oblige me. They dragged me to a cell where I met other officers in white. The officers were released shortly after and I was left alone in the cell.
“It was around noon when they put me in the cell. They brought me out around 6:30 pm and asked me to open my laptop and write a statement.
“They searched through my laptop as I wrote a statement. After reading the statement I wrote, they took me back to the cell.
“I was brought out again at about 7:00 pm. They asked me to go because they were about to close for the day and didn't want me to sleep there because of mosquitoes. They said they could have handed me over to the police but they only pitied me. They said I should report back by 9:00 am on Thursday, July 4, 2024.
“I asked for my belongings, but they refused to hand them over. They only released one of my phones to me after I pleaded with them that I needed it to make a transfer to get cash to buy food.”
He said the next day, he got to the immigration office at about 9:10 am, and Officer Olumbori again read out the penalty which he read to him the previous day and said that his fine was supposed to be N2 million but he (Olumbori) would help him (Jerry) by allowing him pay 10% of the amount, which is N200,000.
Jerry said, “I got pissed off with their ridiculous demand and told them that I wanted to call my lawyer. They got angry, took my phone from me and took me back to the same cell they put me the previous day; that was around past 9:30 am.
“They brought me out around 4:00 pm and asked me to call the lawyer that I wanted to call. They started boasting about how they beat lawyers up, making reference to a recent one where they beat up a lawyer from Oke-Ogun.
“They soon began treating me better when their boss came to the nearby office, but as soon as he left, they took me back to the cell.
“Meanwhile, by that time, I had not been able to call the lawyer because my phone went off due to low battery.”
He said the officers brought him out again around past 5:00 pm and one of the officers charged his phone so he was able to call his lawyer.
He said, “After narrating everything to him, he said I should ask them what exactly my offence was. I asked and they said they had already told me my offence and the penalty, according to what was read from the Immigration Act.
“The lawyer requested that I hand the phone over to one of them so he could get clarification, but none of them accepted to take the phone. They walked out, leaving me and the junior officers behind.
“One of the junior officers then told me to stop claiming my right, that I should beg them so that they would let me go.
“They returned some minutes later and I started to beg them again. Then they told me to write an undertaking that I was wrong and would never assist anyone again with anything that has to do with their passport. I obliged and wrote it. They asked me to give to them the difference between the actual amount remitted for the passport renewal application and what the customer I assisted paid me.
“They called a POS operator from outside the premises and I transferred N10,400. I was given N10,200 by the operator and I handed N10,000 to one of the Immigration officers, leaving me with no reward for the service I rendered to the customer.
“They brought out my bag, took inventory, asked me to sign that everything was complete and allowed me to leave. I left there around 6:00 pm.”
SaharaReporters contacted the Nigerian Immigration Service through its spokesperson, Kenneth Udo, for reaction and clarifications on the claims of the officers.
However, the immigration spokesperson asked for time to reach out to the Ibadan command to hear the details of the incident.
“Your message is well received. However, give me some time to reach out to the command where the incident occurred for details. I will get back to you,” he said.
However, as of the time of writing this report, approximately 36 hours after his initial promise, he had yet to follow up with SaharaReporters as expected, despite receiving a reminder.