Deportation of dissidents : In 1885 the British colonial regime deported King Jaja of Opobo to a remote island in West Indies where he died in 1889. His offence was that he had challenged the imperialist control of the coastal trade. In 1941, Comrade Michael Imoudu, President of the Nigerian Union of Railwaymen, was deported from Lagos and banished to his hometown, Auchi in the Benin Province as he was considered “a potential threat to public safety” . He only returned to Lagos in 1945 following the revocation of Sections 57-63 of the General Defence Regulation, 1941 under which he had been detained. There were other nationalist agitators and labour leaders who were deported and banished to prevent them from taking part in the struggle against colonialism. The barbaric practice of deporting Nigerians was resuscitated by the defunct military dictatorship. In particular, the reactionary regimes of Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha resorted to the crude harassment of political opponents by deportation.
In 1992, the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi SAN, Dr. Beko Ransome -Kuti and I were deported from Lagos and detained at Kuje Prisons for challenging the unending military rule of the Babangida junta. The retired Gen. Zamani Lekwot was deported from Kaduna and detained with us in the prison. The following year, we were also repatriated from Lagos and banished to the same prison for leading peaceful rallies in Lagos
