Jide Onikoyi (20) is worried about his sister. And about his education. "My baby sister Keni (18) is still in Ireland," he said, speaking yesterday morning to The Irish Times from Lagos.
One of 25 deportees who arrived there on a specially chartered aircraft, he explained that he and Keni had arrived in Ireland three years ago as unaccompanied minors.
He could not describe the shock he was experiencing, he said.
"It is such a blow. I don't know what to say. I don't know what I am going to do. Keni is alone in Ireland."
Although Jide is staying with a friend in Lagos, he has no older relatives there. He says he lost contact with his mother many years ago.
Asked at what stage he had learned he was to be deported, he said 3.30 on Wednesday afternoon.
"I didn't think I was going to be deported. I was told to arrive at the Garda National Immigration Bureau on Burgh Quay. I went with my sister and they just gave me a letter saying I was going to be deported. They said they were taking me home. I said they couldn't, that my sister was with me and needed me."
He was also nearing the end of a business studies course with the Dublin Institute of Technology, he says.
"But they said they were just following orders.They gave me a bit of time to get a few of my things and then they brought me out to Balseskin [reception centre in north Dublin] where they kept me for a few hours.
"There were families and children and some people were extremely upset."
He said there was a baby and two other children, aged about one year and about four months.
"There were about 40 gardaí on the flight, I think. They were okay. We got a meal - potatoes, beef, cheese, bread, that kind of thing."
On arrival in Lagos most of the immigration bureau officers remained on the aircraft, he said, while they were taken to immigration where they had to sign "a lot of papers".
"Then we each had to pay €25 to the Nigerian official."
Det Chief Supt Derek Byrne of the bureau said everyone deported had been through the full legal process, from an original asylum application through the appeals system to final deportation.
He said every deportation order would have been read and signed personally by the Minister for Justice.
