Immigration officers in Bop Daddy Challenge have been posted to Boko Haram hit states

Five female Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) personnel who took part in the viral #BopDaddyChallenge, have been posted to restive states in the country for their troubles, according to NewsWireNGR.

In April, NIS issued a query to the ladies, saying their participation in the challenge had caused the organisation “a lot of embarrassment.”

The challenge, a sensation on social media during a coronavirus-induced – ekomiamiblog – lockdown across Nigeria, is one in which ladies flaunt different glowing images of themselves thanks to smartphone-enabled high-resolution photography and editing.

‘Bop Daddy’ is the latest offering from rapper Falz. It features Ms. Banks.twitter.com

NewsWireNGR reports that following their appearance in the viral #BopDaddy video, Priscilla Irabor, Catherine J. Bakura, Blessing Alfred Udida, Binti I. Attabor and Ockiya Eneni have now been posted to states where insurgency and banditry are rife.

In a memo it exclusively obtained, the news platform writes that the officers “have been given just 7 days to report at their new places of assignment.”

The road to Siberia

In the postings ostensibly orchestrated to meet punitive and discriminatory objectives, Priscilla Irabor has been transferred from NIS Lagos State Command to the Nigeria Immigration Training School, Kano (ITSK).

Binti Attabor has been reposted from the service headquarters in Abuja to the Yobe State Command.

Catherine Bakura has been moved from the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport in Enugu to the Nigeria Immigration Training School Ahoada in Rivers State.

Blessing Alfred Udida, the report states, has been moved from the FCT (Abuja) Command to the Akwa Ibom State Command.

Ockiya Eneni has been transferred from the CERPAC (Combined Expatriate Residence Permit and Aliens Card) production facility to the Borno State Command.

The reassigned personnel will bear all travel and relocation expenses as well, the report states.

Quoting an unnamed source, the report adds that “while reassigning officers can be spun as a regular operational event in the service with no ulterior motives, it is clearly punitive in this case because from their entire class cohort, only the five officers concerned are being transferred.”

A spokesperson for the NIS was not immediately available for comments for this story.

Furious immigration bosses

Shortly after Pulse reported the query of the officers in April, a source at the Ministry of Interior had disclosed that the affected officers would not be fired.

The source had however noted that top, conservative bosses at the NIS had insisted on punishing the female officers because participating in the pop culture challenge was a violation of the organisation’s ethics and code of conduct.

“We need to punish them to serve as a deterrence to others. If they want to be dancing on social media, they should have resigned. It was immoral of them to do what they did” one irate NIS boss was quoted as saying.