No fewer than 100 illegal immigrants in Kwara State have been repatriated by the state command of the Nigerian Immigrations Services, the state Comptroller, NIS, Mr Nwachukwu Chime, has said.

In an interview with journalists in Ilorin on Tuesday, he stated that the illegal immigrants, who are from Niger Republic, were arrested in
December 2013 by the command.

He added that they were arrested at different locations in Ilorin, the state capital, while they were allegedly trying to meander their ways
to the city.

The Punch correspondent gathered that some officials of  the Nigeria Army, Sobi Barracks, Ilorin, noticed the illegal immigrants as they were trying to
sneak into Ilorin and promptly provided intelligence information to NIS, leading to the arrest of the aliens.

"We have repatriated all of them, because they have no business being here," Chime said.

He stated that NIS officials swooped on the aliens as they were about entering Ilorin under the pretext of hawking fruits. He added that one of them said they were in Ilorin ‘to search for greener pasture.'

Chime said  the strategy was a proactive measure to forestall any security challenge.

He said, "We have been getting informations about the influx of Nigeriens into Kwara State, especially Ilorin in the guise of selling fruits. And in recent times, it has been so alarming. We have decided to find out the reason they do that.

"To prevent security lapses, we have to send them out because they are illegal immigrants. They have no travel document on them. They have no
papers from any company inviting them to Nigeria for employment. They have no define places of residence. They just come and lay about and
they could be raw materials for insecurity.

"Since these people are not Nigerians, we don't want them to stay here and cause insecurity. That is why we rounded them up"