#EndSARS Protests: Frontliner, Moe Odele Cries Out After Her Passport Is Seized By Immigration
The Nigeria Immigration Service has held on to the passport of #EndSARS promoter, Modupe Odele, for the fifth straight day and has refused to disclose reasons for seizing the passport.
Odele, who provided legal assistance to protesters who were unjustly arrested by the authorities, was stopped at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, on Sunday on her way to the Maldives through Dubai.
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On Thursday, Odele tweeted,
“Today is the 5th day that my passport is still being held after it was seized at the Lagos international airport. If there’s no no-fly list, that’s okay but why has my passport not been released yet?
“Holding on to my passport without giving me any reason for it is a breach of my constitutional right.
I’ve not been informed of any investigation against me, I’m not running. I am here.
Investigate. Ask me questions but do not continue to hold on to my passport for no reason.
“November 1, I was stopped and my passport was taken some minutes before boarding this flight.
No reason was given, other than ‘you are under investigation’ today is November 5,
I still do not have my passport back neither have I been told what the investigation is about.”
The Spokesman for the NIS, Mr. Sunday James, has now told Punch that Moe’s passport was seized as part of a routine border assignment. James said immigration did not seize Odele’s passport because of her #EndSARS activities but because it was enforcing a restriction order.
He said,
“When there is a directive from any agency of government not specific, we have to enforce either entry or restriction of entry by anybody who has been directed not to be allowed exit or entry and as a matter of fact,
we cannot as a border management agency, allow anybody who has been restricted from leaving the country to go out and we cannot allow anybody who has been restricted from entry to enter.
“So, it is a routine assignment and it has nothing to do with End SARS. We are the lead agency for the security management of the border. It has to do with the restriction order which we are duty-bound to enforce.