NIS releases #ENDSARS protester’s passport, free to travel

Nigeria Immigration Service has returned the seized passport of an #EndSARS promoter, Modupe Odele, on Monday.

Odele made this known in a tweet after retrieving the passport.

Immigration had asked Odele to come and pick her passport on Friday at 04 pm but couldn’t meet up.

While giving an update, Odele tweeted, “Passport now picked up. No issues. I’m told I can travel at any time. Thank you so much everyone for the help and concern.”

She earlier complained that “(On the) 1st of November, I was stopped and my passport was taken some minutes to board this flight. No reason was given, other than “you are under investigation”.

“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.”

The passport was returned nine days after it was initially seized.

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.

However, the NIS said the passport of Modupe Odele was seized as part of a routine border assignment.

The spokesman for the NIS, Sunday James, 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.”