NIS Bars 7,836 Nigerians From Travelling Abroad

A total of 7,836 Nigerians were prevented from travelling out of the country by the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) within the first six months of 2014.

In addition, another set of 4,896 were deported from various countries of the world within the same period, says NIS public relations officer, Chukwuemeka Obua yesterday at the media parley of the Forum of Spokespersons of Security and Response Agencies (FOSSRA) hosted by I-Nigerian Initiative in Abuja.

He said that many reasons account for why some Nigerians were refused permission to leave the country including doubts concerning their motive and conflicting travelling documents as their destination countries may decide to refuse them entry.

Obua who spoke about successes and challenges of the service since the current Comptroller General Mr. David Paradang was appointed disclosed that to make the business of border patrolling/policing more effective, the service has embarked on specialised training of the Border Patrol Corps and that the first batch of 1000 officers and men have passed out and deployed.

He pointed out that the service had procured and distributed 59 four wheel jeeps, in addition to All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs), communication gadgets and porter cabins to accommodate officers and men at their patrol bases.

The spokesperson of the Immigration Service also stated that with the renewed border patrolling foreigners with both national identity cards and voters’ card have been intercepted while human trafficking syndicates have been busted along the Nigeria/Cameroon border with Benue State. Currency traffickers and smugglers of small arms have also been intercepted in the course of border patrol operations.

Other achievements include, “Deployment of additional 24 immigration attaches to 12 new missions in furtherance of government’s Citizens Diplomacy policy thrust. The commencement of the Electronic Passenger Automated Registration System (e-PARS).

He explained that NIS currently had staff strength of about 22,000 with an approval to recruit additional 5,000 every year but that since the 2012 exercise, another round of recruitment had not been done.

‘‘An attempt to recruit officers earlier this year ended in a fiasco, as scores of applicants died during the exercise in different parts of the country,’’ he said.

He appealed to Nigerians to be patient with government, as the presidential committee the recruitment matters, headed by the chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC), was still working.

Obua said Nigerians refused admission abroad stood at 1,917 Nigerians refused departure was 7,836 while foreigners refused admission to Nigeria was 19,668 within the same period.

Also the immigration service recorded 713,218 arrivals to Nigeria, 810,635 departures from Nigeria, 392,893 foreigners arrival and 370,792 foreigner departures within the same period.