Alhaji Mohammad Babandede
Former Comptroller General of Nigeria Immigration Service
A former Comptroller General of Nigeria Immigration Service (CGI), Alhaji Mohammad Babandede has called on the Federal government to ensure that the working relationship between Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and Nigeria Immigration Service (NiS) is improved to maximise security, economic and cultural advantages the country shares with other nations.
He made the call in an interview with journalists recently.
Citing the experience of the United States of America (USA) which brought Immigration and Customs closer after September 11, Babandede regretted that any time the two agencies are made to come together in Nigeria they always resist such move.
. According to Babandede, a person carrying goods and a person travelling are the same, especially in our region. You can not separate movement of goods from movement of persons carrying the goods. This explains why both the Immigration and Customs Services should deliberately invest in enhanced partnership and working relationships to achieve effective and efficient national border security and governance.
“The two vital government agencies should innovate their operational systems and synergize to ensure a coordinated fight against cross-border criminality,” Babandede insisted.
The former Comptroller General who also decried what he called great negligence in the roles of migration in the management of Nigeria, urged the federal government to sustain ongoing efforts by Nigeria Immigration Service towards effective border management, stressing the need for Nigeria to establish buffer zones and connectivity between neighboring countries
“The border is not just a security zone. It’s a cultural zone; it’s a historic zone; it’s economic zones as well.
“Migration is key to our development. Nigeria must invest in the type of people they filter in and the type of people we filter out.
“We must analyze the type of jobs that migrants do and how they affect our economy.
“We need to remove people who are undermining our development”, Babandede concluded
