The
Comptroller General, Nigeria Immigration Service, Muhammad Babandede,
has said the Federal Government’s planned electronic border monitoring
will commence fully in 2021.
Babandede, who made the
disclosure at the NIS management retreat in Lagos on Friday, said the
e-border would enable officials to see real time online situation of the
country’s borders.
He said the programme would be implemented
in two years where the 4,047 kilometres of land borders, covering 86
border-control post, comprising six mega-control posts, 16
medium-control posts and 64 mini-control posts, would be monitored.
The Federal Executive Council in April approved N52bn for the electronic monitoring of Nigeria’s borders.
Babandede
explained that the BCPs would be equipped with HD video surveillance
for pedestrian, observable thermal and optical bi-spectrum for low
visibility environment, unified IP telephony and video conferencing
facilities as well as advanced eLTE multi-media walkie-talkie
communication.
“In order to tackle the problem of power
generation, especially at remote locations, there will be solar grid and
0.6 hybrid-power solution for all control posts,” the CGI added.
The
immediate past Minister of Interior, Abdulrahman Dambazau, had stated
that the project was already tested in two border posts and would be
fully implemented in all Nigeria’s 86 border posts and 1,400 illegal
routes being used for smuggling and other crimes.
Babandede said,
“The Federal Government has just granted us the approval to commence
the e-border project. I fear that government will soon be disappointed
with us on this project if we do not immediately emplace massive reforms
in our current crude border management practices. We currently do not
have any modern and functional border security and management practices
and documents.
“Our operations differ from one control post to
the other, while extortion of travellers has become commonplace
especially across land border formations. Some migrants now prefer to
cross our control posts without travel documents so long as they hold
their “settlement fee” for our border operatives.”
According to
the CGI, in view of the fact that Immigration is not the only agency at
border, the NIS will present a globally approved border crossing
procedure.
Speaking on the Seme border, he said the partial
closure was important, as it would allow people to pass through the
recognised point of entry.
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