Photo caption: Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo
The Federal Government, through the Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, said Nigeria has invested heavily in surveillance and intelligence-gathering equipment at the nation’s border points.
The Minister disclosed this on Tuesday in Lagos at the Regional workshop on maritime border security. The event titled, “Regional maritime border security in the context of counter terrorism in the Gulf of Guinea’
The minister explained that Nigeria has Advanced Passenger Information, used to profile passengers coming into the country. According to the minister, the API was used to query the passengers’ records, antecedents, and travel history.
“Now, we can tell you that Nigeria now has an API solution. Before now, we were one of the few countries without an API solution, without the opportunity for our immigration officers to pre-profile people coming into Nigeria, not being able to query their background, query their record system, query their antecedents, and their travel history. But today, I tell you, NIS has that, so if you’re coming into Nigeria today, before you come, we know everything about you,” he explained.
He said the country is now an international obligation to their international colleagues, “by being able to uphold the tenets of the UN resolution of the API solution that we have at the moment.”
Earlier, the Comptroller-General of Immigration, Kemi Nandap, said that the service plays a pivotal role in maritime border security by ensuring that foreign terrorist fighters and other criminal elements do not exploit the nation’s territorial integrity.
“This workshop further emphasises our collective resolve to tackle piracy, terrorism, illicit flow of arms, migrant smuggling, human trafficking, and stowaways, among other transnational organized crimes. We aim to achieve this through sound policies, capacity building, community engagement, collaboration, and regional partnerships,” she said.
