A deputy comptroller of Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), Sunday James, has said that media reports of massive corruption of officials of the (NIS) and other security agencies, who allegedly take bribes to allow illegal aliens in and out of Nigeria at the border posts, are helping to taint the image of the country.
James, who is the Public Relations Officer of the NIS at Seme border, told BusinessDay in an interview, while reacting to a recent BusinessDay investigative report of increasing bribery and corruption at the border areas, that such reports depict a situation where Nigerian citizens especially media managers appear to be trying to sell out the country to the outside.
BusinessDay investigations had through a video that went viral, revealed massive and consistent corruption where officers of the Immigration Service and other security agencies- the police and army were allegedly captured in the video collecting bribes to facilitate illegal movements of aliens in and out of Nigeria. These cases at the borders according to the report are more rampant in the northern parts especially that of Sokoto and Yobe states amidst the perceived porous nature of Nigerian borders.
James advised citizens and information managers (media) and those in security circle to manage whatever it is that is the content and context of our nation.
“Every nation that is sovereign needs protection both from the citizenry, the government and agents of state. If the information managers who are the press decided to blacklist this country or sell it in a negative outlook to the outside world, the same thing we say is what the outside world will consume because people will rely on you because you are talking from inside than what they see from outside,” he said.
He also warned Nigerian citizens not to categorize Nigeria’s borders as being porous saying that the borders are not porous both rather made up of unmanned spaces, like in most countries of the world.
“I have always said severally that people assume that the Nigerian borders are porous but the borders are not porous. I would rather prefer to use the word unmanned spaces. Every other country has the same unmanned spaces in the air, on land and in the blue border which is the marine or the sea port.
“ So when we categorize our nation as being porous what we are doing even as reporters or as citizens is like trying to sell out our country to the outside world by trying to tell them that they can come in easily because this is how the country looks like,” he said.
He however, said that officers of the service indentified in the video, will be sanctioned according to the law if they are found culpable. He added that the Comptroller General of Immigration, Mohammed Babandede has given directive for an intensive investigation to be carried out and a comprehensive report to be submitted to him.
“The officers that were identified were brought to the headquarters and they are going to go through the due process of both administrative and professional procedures that have to do with our standard operation. So the public are enjoined to keep their eyes on the operatives and report back to us but they should not malign the Service because of an individual officer’s act,” he said.
The PRO said further that the Service has made tremendous achievements in the area of border control by the introduction of e- border where the service has deployed technology to monitor movements across the borders. He noted also that the nation has embarked on effective visa and passport system that is helping the Service to control the borders including e-registration.
“It is because of the unmanned space that the Federal Government introduced the Operation Quick Response that brought the military, the immigration, and Customs together so that when we have a full force on ground, we will be able to make sure that these places are covered. Beyond that, the NIS is going into e-border solution where we are deploying advance technology to help us monitor our borders even from the headquarters here,” he said.
Innocent Odoh, Abuja
