No fewer than 300 Nigerians living in the Republic of Botswana have been deported home by Lieutenant General Seretse Khama Ian Khama’s administration in the past few months, after the authorities refused to renew their permits.
The angry deportees want President Goodluck Jonathan and the National Assembly to quickly look into the relations between Botswana and Nigeria in order to ascertain the true conditions of Nigerians living in that country.
The returnees, most of whom had lived and worked in the Southern African country, said since the assumption of General Khama, whose mother was of British origin, Nigerians in that country had been subjected to dehumanising conditions and racial abuse, even when, they claimed, they had been law-abiding and of good behavior.
Alleging that the target of the Khama government had been how to get rid of innocent Nigerians pursuing a just course or doing genuine businesses in the country, they claimed that all their efforts to make the Botswana authorities understand that they were peace-loving and not interested in criminal activities fell on deaf ears as they were only interested in sending them out without any reason.
Speaking on the ordeals of Nigerians in the hands of the Botswana officials, Mr. Kingsley Ndubuisi from Anambra State, who returned to the country without his belongings in September 2012, said all Nigerians whose permits expired were forcefully deported, leaving their property, wives and children behind.
The most annoying of all the troubles Nigerians are facing in that country, is the incessant stamping of "PI", meaning Prohibited Immigrant on the passport of Nigerian nationales by the Botswana authorities; the implication is that such a person cannot enter Botswana again, according to Ndubuisi.
He said some of the victims of the “flush Nigerians policy” are well-trained Nigerian doctors, pharmacists and businessmen.
“There is also a pharmacist who live in Phikwe married to a Botswana citizen; he was also given PI, and he is still waiting in detention for his deportation,” Ndubuisi aldded.
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