Africa Press-Nigeria:
The Nigerian military is behind a no-fly list containing names of some persons, who took active parts in the recent #EndSARS protest across the country, a source at the Nigerian Immigration Service has told SaharaReporters.
A no-fly list is a register of people banned from boarding commercial aircrafts for travel within, into, or out of a country.
Recall that a number of persons, who took part in the protest had already been prevented from travelling out of Nigeria in recent days by the NIS after being informed that they were on the
no-fly list and were being investigated by the authorities.
A particular case of reference is that of a lawyer, Modupe Odele, who was prevented by the NIS from making a trip to the Maldives where she was billed to celebrate her birthday.
While it was initially thought that the NIS acted alone in that incident, SaharaReporters has now confirmed that the names of Odele and other active participants in the protest were included on the list following their efforts in rallying demonstators at the Lekki Toll Gate area of Lagos where Nigerian Army personnel attacked and killed several protesters on the evening of October 20, 2020.
“Odele was prevented from travelling as a result of a memo from the Nigerian military claiming that they were investigating her.
“The military sent us a no-fly list of EndSARS leaders especially agitators involved at the Lekki protest,” the NIS source told SaharaReporters.
Earlier on Monday, Odele had shared with her friends how she was stopped by NIS from travelling out of the country at the Lagos airport.
She said, “I went to the airport, passed through immigration, and while I was putting my bags through the body and baggage scanner, the immigration officer who had previously cleared me, called me back. He told me he had orders from above to detain me.
“Okay, at this point I’m like ‘excuse me, my flight is in an hour. On what grounds are you detaining me?’ He didn’t respond. Instead, he goes to his computer where he typed in my name and something that looked like a ‘wanted poster’ popped up on the portal.
