Nigeria Brutal Exit

Expulsion turns to chaos

"We were hungry, thirsty and penniless," John Cofie Godigah, 38, recalled last week from a hospital bed in Ghana. "I expected the Nigerians to show some feeling. I was mistaken." Godigah had driven his car from Lagos, Nigeria, to a border station on the Benin frontier, joining a caravan of an estimated 250 vehicles filled with foreigners who were being forced to leave the country. When the crowd tried to force its way across the choked border into Benin, Nigerian guards began firing warning shots and tear gas. Godigah was hit. He awoke in a hospital, was released after treatment and...

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