Breaking: Diplomatic row as Chinese company orders Immigration officer shot in Nigeria

The federal government has threatened a serious diplomatic row with the Republic of China over maltreatment of a Nigerian Immigration Service officer shot by a Chinese company in Nigeria for asking for the company’s permit to work in the country.

Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, who made the revelation Thursday in Abuja, while speaking at a stakeholders sensitisation workshop on the implementation of the Nigeria Visa policy 2025, declared that Nigerian government will take up the matter as a diplomatic issue.

According to Tunji-Ojo, the development alone is an attack on Nigeria. It will never happen. It will never be tolerated.

The Minister said the Immigration officer, who was on official duty, had visited the Chinese company in Jos, Plateau state, to check the list of the company’s expatriates, but the owner of the company ordered a security officer in the premises to shoot the government official.

Tunji-Ojo said: “I won’t go to China as a Nigerian, open a company and tell my security to shoot a government official in uniform. It’s never done anywhere in the world.

“These officers put their lives on the line. These officers serve this country with their all. And you will not come from anywhere and ask them to shoot them in their fatherland.

It will no longer happen. We will take it up with you. Because that company, we (Nigerian government) have the power to withdraw their business permit Nigeria and declare them illegal.”

The Minister, who was moved to cry, wondered how it became an offence for an Immigration officer to visit a foreign company and demanded to see their expatriate list.

“It will not happen again. So we’re going to be very hard. We will not stop your business. We will not overburden your business. But don’t make us inferior in our own land. No, please.

“And we’re going to be very tough on this. Because talking to you, I’m not just talking with passion on this topic, I’m talking with a lot of anger, because that guy that was shot is a Nigeria that we all swore to protect by virtue of the laws of Nigeria, by the constitution. That Immigration guy was not shot by a terrorist, is a father, he is a son to somebody. He is a husband to somebody. That cannot happen anywhere in the world.

“We will not tolerate it. Please, no agent, no company is above the law,” the Minister declared.