By CALEB AYANSINA
ABUJA—Nigeria Immigration Services, NIS, has identified inadequate logistics and poor road network as the major factors inhibiting the service from protecting the country’s porous borders.
Controller General of Immigration, Mrs. Rose Uzoma, at a three-day Illegal Migration Awareness Project, I-MAP, organised by Prisoners Rehabilitation And Welfare Action, PRAWA, yesterday, in Abuja, said NIS was working on immigration booklet that would assist Nigerians if they run into problem, when they travel out of the country.
Represented by the Controller in charged of Immigration, Mr. Mohammed Babandede, she noted that poor state of road infrastructure across the West African border countries was not helping the service, adding that there was need for NIS to be properly equipped.
She said: “We are producing an information booklet which is called passport to self migration. The Controller General of the Services is spearheading this to provide information for Nigerians, so that you travel with the knowledge and this will be available at the point of collecting your passport, to be available with the embassies, when people are applying for visas and at the point of departure.
“You know many Nigerians travel and end up being victims of trafficking or smuggling, because they do not have knowledge or if they are stranded, they don’t know where to go. This booklet will provide that information.
“The challenge we have with the borders, if you look at the borders all the way from Nigeria to Cameroon, is mountainous in nature. If you look at the border between Nigeria, Niger, Chad, it is all desert. As you are aware, it is porous at large, so what we are doing is to work towards assessment.”
SOURCE: 4 September 2012.
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