Immigration department arrest 3 foreigner nationals who were trying to acquire the national passport illegally and they are help at police pending court process.
The people who were arrested are identified as Kidebere Botas Akafo alias Kakaire Ashiraf , Ibrahim Muhammad Yahaya a.k.a Kakaire who are both Nigerian nationals and Ahadi Derick a Congolese who was masquerading as Owamanyi Derick.
According to the immigration spokesperson Simon Peter Mundeyi, the trio had genuine national identity cards which are the respective names of the nationals mentioned above.
Mundeyi while addressing reporters in a security joint press briefing at police’ s Naguru Headquarters on August 7, 2023 said these were arrest when they appeared for an interview with an aim of acquiring a national passport. He said that Akafo confessed that he is indeed a Nigerian national after failing to talk the Lusoga language which he claimed to be.
Akafo after being interrogated revealed that the Ugandan passport is acceptable and recognized in many developed countries as opposed to the Nigerian passport, so he wanted to acquire it so that he can be able to move freely to UK, America and other European and Asian countries.
“ The trio will be committed to court to answer charges of illegally entering Uganda and acquiring the national identity cards and when they are found guilty they will be deported.’’ Mundeyi said.
The passport department spokesperson also informed journalists that they confiscated 10,000 genuine national identity cards that were acquired illegal by foreign nationals and the department will hand them over to NIRA for cancellation.
He said that there people who came here illegally but after staying and working here for a period of 20 years they now eligible to acquire the national identity cards and passport.
The people acquire these identities after getting the LC I and RDC recommendation letters. Mundeyi attributed this to the lack of the national data bank were the applicants for the identity cards can’t be traced.
By George Bukenya