THE Federal Government has revealed that not less than 1,344,318 million Nigerians, mostly youths departed Nigeria to various countries of the world in 2017 in search of greener pastures, education and medical tourism.
The government also said the Nigeria Immigration Service remitted over N73 billion in revenue to the Federation account between 2016 and 2017.
Minister of Interior, Lieutenant Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazau, made this known on Thursday in Abuja during a ministerial press briefing on activities of his ministry in the last three years- November 2015 to November 2018.
Dambazau also disclosed that Nigeria would soon commence domestic production of e-passports to put an end to capital flight as a result of foreign production of the travel document.
He said: “Ministry was able to record through the Nigeria Immigration Service, in the year 2017, a total of 1,344,318 Nigerians who departed to various countries of the world.
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“The number of Nigerians who departed to other countries increased by 11.11% from the figure of the year 2016 which was 1,209,897.
“The increase was attributed to the search for greener pastures, mainly by teeming youths of the country as well as other factors such as education, pilgrimage, and medical tourism,” he said.
The Minister also said the ministry also recorded the number of foreigners who departed Nigeria to amount 568,855 representing 16 per cent higher than 2016 record of 478,413.
On domestic production of a passport, he said: “The Ministry, under the Public-Private-Partnership arrangements, is working assiduously to localise the production of e-passports in the country.
“This will help conserve foreign exchange, create jobs, build the capacity of Nigerians in the aspect of passport production and make available passports booklets,” he said.
The decision to ensure local production of the e-passports might also be connected to the scarcity of the documents which had hit the Immigration Service in the last two years as a result of a high exchange rate.
Dambazau noted that while the Immigration Service generated N37, 421,114, 030.77 billion in 2016, the Agency raked in N35,724,482,338.96 in 2017.
He explained that the revenue generated by the Service in 2017, shows a 4.5 per cent decrease over the 2016 record, adding that this revenue decline might be attributed to high exchange rate and scarcity of some Immigration facilities in the year.
While assuring Nigerians of maintaining internal security and public safety, the Minister said the current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has been consistent in providing funds to respective agencies to execute their mandates.
He said his ministry has also proposed the creation of a number of departments including Human Security department in order to tackle internal security issues more effectively.
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