Categories: Opinions

Of passport and border management reforms

NIGERIANS are one of the world’s most travelled people. One Nigerian is reportedly in almost every country in every continent of the world. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs put Nigeria’s Diaspora population at 1.7 million as of 2020. Economically, the World Bank indicated that $65.34 billion in remittances from Nigerians in the Diaspora came into the Nigerian economy over three years (2018 – 2020). Education, job opportunities, career advancement, search for better living conditions, medical treatment, and business are among strong factors for the high migration of Nigerians abroad. Having a valid Nigerian passport is the number one vital requirement for anyone desiring to travel out of the country, in line with global standards. A country’s passport is a national pride because it confers the highest affirmation of citizenship on the holder. Not just a travel document. But for Nigerians who desire the document, it is easier for the camel to pass through the eye of the needle than getting a Nigerian passport. Citizens at home and abroad often face difficulties in processing their Nigerian passports, whether fresh application or reissue.

Cumbersome process. Endless wait. Booklet shortage. Repeated visits to Passport Control Offices. Thriving corruption: extortions by touts and unscrupulous Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) personnel, all make the passport process complex. Many passport applicants have missed or lost opportunities on account of inefficient passport administration. Equally, the state of insecurity in Nigeria sometimes exacerbated by the influx of criminally-minded foreigners is also a big worry for the government. For the nation’s immigration management agency, difficult passport processing and porous borders, especially land posts often blight its reputation. Although the challenges predated the current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, the need to innovate ways to fire efficiency into passport administration and border management is a key priority for the government. While restating the government’s resolve to tackle the problems headlong, Minister of Interior, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola, said the government was strengthening the capacity and support for NIS intending to make it a world-class migration management agency.

Speaking during the rollout of the new enhanced e-Passport in Ibadan, Oyo State on December 20, he said the reforms of passport and border administration were on course. ‘‘The Ministry of Interior had consistently provided the enabling environment for the Nigeria Immigration Service to undertake and implement several reforms, especially about border management and passport administration as well as internal monitoring/control mechanisms to enhance efficient and effective service delivery to Nigerians and foreigners alike. These strategic efforts are geared towards entrenching a more secured environment in our overall national security and economic interests,’’ he said. Over the decades, the scarcity of passport booklets and the attendant challenges of passport processing have caused the NIS to continuously seek innovative ways to improve and modernise the process of passport issuance. And while speaking on the reforms being undertaken, Acting Comptroller General, Nigeria Immigration Service, Isah Idris Jere, listed efficiency of the passport administration and border management, and improved personnel welfare as three key priorities. According to him, first is the elimination of cash payment and middlemen for any passport services at all passport centres in the country by launching the new enhanced e-Passport with Polycarbonate Data Page and other security features.

The enhanced e-Passport eliminates any form of contact with any person at the point of applying and paying for a passport as applicants can now initiate and complete the process on their mobile devices all by themselves. The only thing left is the biometric capture on appointment days. This way, corruption through agents and personnel of NIS has been eliminated while efficiency in service delivery has been improved. With full implementation nationwide, Jere added that the new digitalised passport processing is not just a great improvement on the previous biometric passport technology adopted in 2007, it will curb forgery, impersonation, and other forms of travel document fraud associated with the old machine-readable passport regime. “The document conferring nationality on us as Nigerians is a passport. The document for what it is has integrity. So, I intend to pursue the process, to ensure that the process to has integrity. We call them breeder documents: indigene letters, birth certificates, introduction letters are genuinely obtained and verified. Not only that, including the permanent address of the applicant. We intend to verify those addresses provided by the applicant residences, even if you live in Abuja, or even if you are living in Lagos, we go through Lagos to verify. So, it’s the process that we intend to checkmate to have integrity as the document has integrity,’’ he emphasised. Furthermore, the NIS boss stated that new standardised timelines for the passport application process are now six weeks for fresh applications and three weeks for reissue.

On the accomplishment of the service, he revealed that NIS issued 2.7 million passports between 2019 till date, while in 2021 alone, it deployed 600,000 passport booklets all over the country and overseas – the largest deployment is ever done in the history of the country. Other reforms include successful automation and integration of the system for monitoring stolen and lost travel documents (SLTD) with the INTERPOL system, a first in Africa.

The service has also concluded plans to begin full implementation of the ICAO-Compliant Nigerian Temporary Passport with enhanced security features. This new strategy replaces the former emergency paper travel certificate which could be easily forged by criminally-minded people to enter Nigeria.

Another initiative is the deployment of the Advanced Passenger Information System (APIS) at all air entry points. With APIS, the government has the full details of all incoming travelers into the country even before arrival.

The NIS now also issues a full biometric visa at all entry points into the country as against the previous paper stamped visa with no security and personalisation features. This ensures nobody illegally enters Nigeria; therefore, safeguarding the country from external forces that can compromise national security.

NIS unveiled the Nigeria Visa Policy (NVP) 2020 in compliance with the Presidential Executive Order 1 (EO1) on Ease of Doing Business, including the expansion of visa categories from 6 to 79, as another layer of the reform initiatives.

Passport-National Identity Number (NIN) linkage is also an initiative by NIS to ensure a unified national identity database in line with the government’s directive.

On border management efficiency, Jere said the government has invested massively in ICT infrastructure and technology-based solutions to improve surveillance, monitoring, and control mechanisms at all the nation’s points of entry–land, airports, and seaports.

One of the steps taken is the signing of e-Border; it is ICT infrastructure that enables real-time border surveillance from a control room.

‘‘ICT is the only solution to fortify our borders now. Soon, we will deploy the e-Border, maybe by next year. Part of why we have this e-Border is to serve as a control centre from where we can see what is happening in Sokoto’s life. You can see those crossing the border with their machine live! That’s the future of NIS, we want to go to the moon in NIS. So, ICT is the answer to surveillance, survey our borders, gather data and share our data with other agencies for credible action,’’ he said.

Jere explained that efficiency in managing Nigeria’s massive borders is key for NIS. ‘‘Nigeria as a country is sitting on 4500 kilometers inclusive of 850 nautical miles along the shoreline, so the borders are massive. So, the key area of focus is border management’’

As the engine room of the reforms, he said personnel welfare is the third leg of his tripodal reform agenda. To this end, he stated that all steps are being taken to improve the welfare of officers and men.

‘‘We want to ensure better border management; we want to reform passport administration. All these are processes we want to do, who will drive them if you don’t take care of the officers? These are the key areas because of the time I have. I want to start it, so the person coming after me can continue from where I stopped,’’ he stated.

Besides, he disclosed that management recently launched the NIS Code of Conduct and Ethics document to ‘‘regulate the conduct of NIS personnel in ensuring that services are rendered most seamlessly, transparently and courteously while checking the excesses of the staff.’’

The expectation of all stakeholders including the government, the traveling public, and the international community is that the reforms’ regime in passport administration, border management, and retooling of NIS personnel would bring about the desired efficiency of immigration management in Nigeria.