Immigrations Mulls Biometrics @ Borders, Airports

The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) said that it will introduce biometrics technology at borders of the country to check porosity and illegal migration of foreigners.

Rilwan Bala Musa, acting comptroller general, Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) said that the country's borders were porous and needed to be fortified by the introduction of biometrics.

He said that some of the machines would be at the airports and that it will give accurate data of individuals in the next 40 years as every information provided would be in the data bank.

“The borders are porous in such a way that they are not like the airports where anybody comes to the airport with passport. So we are trying to put biometrics in place”

Musa said that the Immigration counters at the airports would be increased to accelerate passengers clearance adding that passengers were expected to be given speedy clearance on arrival after over eight hours flight.

The NIS helmsman said that Immigration officers would be sent on observation trips outside the country to observe passengers clearing in other airports saying that there would be changes as soon as that was done.

He added that the average Immigration officer needed to be cautious hence there was need to send them outside to observe how it was done in other airports in developed world.

“Our intention is to have these officers on observation trips so that by the time they come back; I believe they will improve on what they are doing”