The Nation Newspaper

Tag: immigration

  • FAAN, Immigration collaborate to secure airports

    The Federal Government is introducing fresh security measures at airports nationwide.

    This will include improvement in passenger facilitation on arrival from flight at major international airports, to reduce the time for luggage collection.

    To this end, the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) and the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, (FAAN) are to install state-of-the-art equipment at the international airports for the facilitation of passenger movement.

    Among the facilities to be given priority are Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos and Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.

    The Comptroller-General of the Rilwan, Bala Musa, said during a visit to FAAN’s Managing Director that more counters and cubicles would also be built to resolve problems associated with passenger clearance at immigration points.

    He said the equipment would capture passengers’bio-metrics and photographs, which would be handy if there is need for them.

    Such information, he said, would be relayed at the border posts to secure the country’s gateways.

    Musa, who had earlier inspected the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, appealed to FAAN management to allocate additional offices to his men, who need more space to do their jobs, especially at the Abuja airport.

    He also spoke of plans to facilitate the training of more officers, who would undergo an exchange programme at airports in the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States, to see how their airports work.

    Soon, he said, NIS would roll out measures to checkmate the request for multiple passports by Nigerians through the 10 finger prints.

    Director of Airport Security, FAAN, Mr Wendel Ogunedo, said the authority is prepared to ameliorate passengers’ problem.

    He called on other security agencies at the airports to join hands with his organisation in securing the gateways into the country from unlawful interferences.

    Efforts, he said, were on to fast-track passenger facilitation with the completion of the arrival fingers’extension at the Lagos International Airport, which would be fitted with modern equipment to ease movement before the end of this month.

    It is for this reason, he said, that FAAN sent about 30 of its mangers to Manchester in the UK to understudy how the airport system works, to replicate the system in Nigeria.

    Ogunedo said the airport authority is poised to carry out pre-emptive measures to secure the airports against any breach.

    The government, he said, had signed an agreement with the Dubai-based Emirates Airlines for the training of AVSEC officials.

     

  • Still on the immigration recruitment exercise

    Still on the immigration recruitment exercise

    SIR: The recent report of the spat between the Minister of the Interior and the Comptroller-General of Immigration Service as carried by some dailies including The Nation of Friday, December 28, 2012 over an alleged surreptitious recruitment exercise is symptomatic of the general malaise and decadence in both the Ministry and Immigration Service.

    The Comptroller of Immigration Service (CGIS) had refuted the allegation that she was recruiting officers and men into the Service without following the due process. According to her,the Minister couldn’t have stopped an exercise that was yet to begin. In other words, there was no recruitment going on in the first place. The Minister was lying! Her defense was all sophistry for all I care. Those who know and are close to the workings of the Service know better.

    In August,2011, according to an Abuja based local newspaper The Road, Thursday August 18, 2011, similar recruitment exercise was carried out clandestinely by the same CGIS where it was alleged that out of the 2700 vacancies available for that year, 1000 slots went to the Presidency while copious allocations went to the Interior Ministry, the politicians, the Board of the Service, CGIS cronies and top functionaries of the service etc. Up till now nobody has refuted the allegation.

    Apart from this, recruitments have continued to be made into the service through the process tagged ‘replacement’. Nobody knows those who are being replaced in the first instance. But it would appear that you must know somebody ‘who is somebody ‘ before you could be recruited or pay your way through as alleged. And to imagine that the majority of officers at the service headquarters don’t know about this much less those at the state commands. These have been going on for the past two years.

    Whether you are talking about promotion, transfer or appointment, it’s now a matter of ‘cash and carry’. The recent promotion released in the last quarter of last year nearly tore the service asunder. It was a parody of injustice whereby subordinates and juniors were promoted far and above their more qualified seniors. The dissatisfaction therefrom is already causing ripples in the service.

    The CGIS is therefore not speaking the truth. It was alleged that the recruitment exercise had been designated to hold in a primary school somewhere in Asokoro before the minister wielded the big stick. Even if the CGIS succeeds in deceiving some people, she should understand that she couldn’t deceive those who actually bought their ways through and those who came on the back of godfathers and godmothers.

    I think what may have triggered the recent altercations between the minister and the CGIS was that the latter probably outfoxed the former hence the hammer. Absolutely,both the ministry and the service are culpable.

     

    • Ogidi Martin,

    Asokoro, Abuja.

  • PENGASSAN chief seeks immigration policy review

    The Federal Government has been advised to review the country’s immigration policy to check influx of illegal immigrants into the country.

    President, Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), Comrade Babatunde Ogun, said the review would help to reduce crime.

    Ogun further said many people from Nigeria’s neighbouring countries migrate to Nigeria without proper documents.

    This, he attributed, to the porosity of the nation’s borders and lack of commitment on the part of the officers and men of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS).

    “There have been several reports of cases of attacks on the Nigerians in the Northern part of the country by herdsmen from some neighbouring countries. More worrisome is the Al Quada dimension to the insecurity in the country.

    “I think the review of the immigration policy needs to involve re-orientation, training and retraining of the officers and men of the Nigerian Immigration on protecting our borders”.

    He argued that the laxity of the policy also allowed foreigners to take jobs that are meant for Nigerians, all in the name of expatriates, stating that whereas “some of the foreigners who parade as expatriates have no specialisation that can qualify them for being in the country.”

    “With this, they take our jobs and increase unemployment in the country and violate the Nigerian law on expatriate quota,” he said.

    He charged the government to review the ECOWAS policy, which allows for free movement of goods and persons within the sub-region to curb crime in the country.

    Due to Nigeria’s strategic position in Africa, he stated that many people with various aims and intents are coming to Nigeria.

    Ogun tasked the Federal Government on the issuance of National Identification Card to citizens of the country, saying that this will be the first step towards enhancing security in Nigeria.

    “First, let the government revisit the issue of the National Identification Card, as a mode of identifying the citizens. This exercise must either be done in collaboration with the Immigration or the database be sent to the immigration, he said.

    The union President described the last National Identity Card exercise as a sham, adding that many people did not register during the exercise, while many of those who registered could not collect their cards.