A Nigerian man deported from the US to Ghana has told the BBC that he is now stuck in a hotel in Togo, after he and five others were secretly transferred to the neighbouring country by Ghanaian officers.
The man said they were informed they would be moved from a military camp to better accommodation, but were then dumped in Togo. The BBC has approached Ghana's government for comment.
The US government deported the Nigerian man - along with other West African nationals - as part of its crackdown on immigration.
Ghana's Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa previously said the government had accepted the deportees in the spirit of pan-African empathy.
The Nigerian, who has requested anonymity for safety reasons, alleged that Ghanaian officers took him and the five other deportees into Togo through a back route, claiming that this was done after bribing local police, and without informing Togolese authorities of their entry.
They did not take us through the main border, they took us through the back door. They paid the police there and dropped us in Togo, he said.
The Togolese authorities have not commented on the alleged presence of the deportees on their territory.
Four of the group - three Nigerians and a Liberian - then checked into a hotel in Lomé, the Togolese capital, which lies just across the border from where they were abandoned.
With no documents of their own, he said they relied on the hotel staff to receive money from relatives abroad to cover their bills.
We're struggling to survive in Togo without any documentation, he said.
None of us has family in Togo. We're just stuck in a hotel, he added. Right now, we're just trying to survive until our lawyers can help us with this situation.
He said that while in Ghana they had been asking for better living conditions since the environment at the military camp where they were placed was deplorable.
Life there was really hard, so we asked for a better place, better medication, better healthcare and better water.
He said that days later, immigration officials arrived at the camp, saying they were taking six of them to a hotel for more comfort, but they ended up across the border in Togo.
When we arrived, we asked what we were doing at the border, and they told us they wanted us to sign some paperwork so they could take us to a hotel, but we didn't sign anything, he added.
The Nigerian told the BBC that the language barrier in Togo made it difficult to communicate as Togo's official language is French, while he spoke English.
He also said that his deportation had affected his family in the US, lamenting, I have a house in the US where my kids live. How am I supposed to pay the mortgage?
He fears that returning to Nigeria could lead to his arrest and torture due to his affiliation with the Yoruba Self-Determination Movement, an activist organization advocating for the rights of the Yoruba ethnic group.
The US has not provided a reason for his deportation, and the Nigerian was part of a group that included nationals from Togo, Liberia, and The Gambia, previously held in a US detention facility.
The US government's third-country deportation policy has faced criticism, with several countries pushing back against the strategy, including Nigeria.
Ghana's leadership has reiterated its willingness to accept more deportees, although opposition MPs are demanding a suspension of the agreement until it is ratified by parliament.
Lawyers for the deportees have initiated legal action against both the US and Ghanaian governments, asserting their rights have been violated.
