The Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) has denied claims by Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan that its officers seized her passport and attempted to stop her from travelling abroad on Tuesday.
Recall that the lawmaker representing Kogi Central had earlier gone live on Facebook, alleging that immigration officers at the airport withheld her passport without legal justification. In the video, a visibly upset Natasha said she was being unlawfully prevented from leaving the country despite having no court order restricting her movement.
“Having completed my second-year celebration, I decided to take a week off. I’m at the airport, and my passport has been withheld again. Have I committed any offence? Why are you withholding my passport?” the Senator queried during the livestream.
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“This is wrong. There was no order. Yes, I know I have two federal government cases against me, of which the president of Nigeria instructed the AGF to withdraw the cases,” she said, adding that she had never defaulted on her court appearances.
“You have no right to withhold my passport or deny me exit from my country. I have committed no offence, and this must stop. I think I have to sue you for continuously embarrassing me,” she continued. “You can’t keep doing this every time. There is no court order. I have not missed any of my court appearances. I am not a flight risk. I am not a risk to my country. So why are you treating me like a criminal?”
Moments later, one of the officers returned her passport. In the video, Natasha could be heard saying, “Can I have my passport, please? Thank you very much. Sometimes you just have to be a rebel to get things right. If I had not gone public, would you have given me my passport?”
However, reacting to the allegation, the NIS spokesperson, Akinsola Akinlabi, said the Senator was never stopped from travelling, describing the incident as a “routine immigration procedure.”
“NIS didn’t seize the distinguished senator’s passport, but rather she went through routine immigration checks and was allowed to travel,” Akinlabi told Channels Television on Tuesday.
He explained that officers were merely carrying out their statutory duties, noting that temporarily holding a traveller’s passport for verification does not amount to seizure.
“The NIS officers needed to conduct their checks. They may take your passport to do so, but that doesn’t mean it was seized as alleged,” Akinlabi said. “She has since been allowed to travel. Perhaps while waiting for the checks to be completed, she assumed she was being stopped from travelling.”
Akinlabi further revealed that Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan had already boarded her flight by the time her video began circulating online.
“She has travelled since then. The video was made while she was going through the checks, not after. The passport was never seized,” he added.
When asked whether the Senator resisted handing over her passport for inspection, Akinlabi declined to confirm. “I don’t know about that,” he said. “But the officers conducting the checks are authorised to collect passports for verification and must return them once done, which they did.”
