Tag: secure

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.