Police arrest 55 illegal migrants in Osun

Saturday, August 22, 2026 -The Nigeria Immigration Service, Osun State Command, on Friday paraded in Osogbo 55 illegal migrants arrested at different locations in the state.

The Service said the migrants are nationals of Cameroon and Congo and had entered the state without any documents.

Addressing journalists shortly after parading the migrants, the Osun Comptroller of Immigration, Ibrahim Akinyemi, said the arrest followed intelligence at the disposal of the command.

Akinyemi said, “These people are about 55. They are irregular migrants. They were arrested and brought here for repatriation. They came in through an unauthorised route. So, their stay here has become a serious nuisance.

“Through intelligence gathering, we were able to locate their residence, and we had to bring them here with the directive from the service headquarters through the Comptroller General of the Nigerian Immigration Service. So, this is just the beginning of the exercise.

“They were apprehended through intelligence gathering. We had to go to their various locations to bring them here to the office. We have to profile and check their documents to know which ones are eligible, or which ones are legal and can be regularized.”

The Comptroller said the NIS checked all the miners and discovered that they did not have any travel documents

“They don’t even have ordinary passports, and they are here doing this illegal online business that is not registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission,” he added.

Giving further insight into the locations where the migrants were picked up, Akinyemi said some of them had taken up accommodation in Owode-Ede community, adding that the command was still on the lookout for others who may be hiding at yet-to-be-discovered locations across the state.

Akinyemi further said that under interrogation, the migrants claimed that they were in the state for an online business called QNET and had refused to disclose further information about the online business.

He also stated that the command would go after those involved in bringing the migrants to the state, saying, “They also claimed to have come through Yola (Adamawa State). By the grace of God, we are taking them back to where they came from.”

One of the migrants, Ismail Mohammed from Cameroon, during an interview, said he arrived in Osun in February 2026 at the invitation of a lady living in Chad to do online business in the state.