The Comptroller General of the Nigerian Immigration Service, Mr. David Parradang, on Wednesday, raised the alarm that the nation’s borders were too porous. This he said was encouraging influx of illegal immigrants who are constituting security risks across the country.
Parradang stated this at the 2014 budget defence organised by the Senate Committee on the interior.
He lamented that the budgetary provisions for his agency over the years were highly inadequate to check the the illegal immgrants and even to monitor their activities within the country.
He said, “Distinguished Senators, you would have gone round one or two of our borders and at best, they are open fields, there is no form of control that can be said to be effective because most of them are open.
“It is not right for us to leave them that way because a lot of illegal immigrants can come in and a lot of arms can be moved in and we have complained severally that there are many unmanned routes, illegal crossings.”
He noted that it was not proper to keep the borders open without providing effective security in those areas, in order not to expose the country to further security challenges.
He therefore pleaded with the committee to assist in making sure that the 2014 budget squarely addresses the border issues.
Parradang said, “We need to look at our key entry points in our North-East, North-Central, and North-West and some South-South areas.
“What we feel is most important thing to do is to get the communication equipment on ground. If we want to make an interception and arrest anyone that is coming in the country illegally, we must be pick him before he crosses the border.”
He added that the N160 million budgetted for motorcycles was a far cry from what was requested.
On the issue of recruitment, Parradang said his agency had started the process and had got the approval of the board to recruit 4,000. He however stated that there was no budgetary provision to fund the exercise.
He said, “If we recruit the people there will be no salaries for them, so we have approached the budget office, they said it was late and that it cannot make available that amount of money at the end of the year.”
He said about N4 billion would be needed to pay those officers that were expected to be recruited in 2014. Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
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I put it to u that u re laying n incompetend.even 100bilion is givin to u will stil nt do anytin,so wake up to ur responsibility to make nigeria a beta place.
ReplyDeleteThis people lack knowledge, its now they know Nigerian boarder is porous....Must we wait for problems to arrise b4 they think the right thing? Old generation people. Those this so called controller even knows what it takes to maintain international standard boarder as well as the requurements, I don't think so. Anyway, Naija should wake up fast from its sleep or pass the sleep into comma and kater die if she refuse to wake up as a country.
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