Minister of Interior, Abba Moro, in
this interview with journalists bares his mind on issues concerning
immigration and prisons services. NIYI ODEBODE was there.
The country is facing the problem of prison congestion. What is being done to solve it?
I can say this again that Nigerians have
every cause to worry about our prison situation. Over 70 per cent of our
prison inmates are awaiting trial. Let me say that if we are able to
successfully ease out this segment of people in our prisons, Nigeria
will have the lowest record of prisoners in the world. But as I said,
the problems that we have in the prisons today are problems that have
come over a series of years of neglect by successive governments. This
administration has taken full steps to ensure these problems are solved
once and for all. Today, I can tell you that in a proper appreciation of
the problems of prisons, particularly the issue of congestion, this
government has taken steps to expand our existing prison cells. We are
seriously in discussion with the Federal Ministry of Justice and the
ministries of justices of the various states, enlisting their support
in decongesting our prisons. The major problem that we have today is
that because of the inadequacies in the number of judges in our courts,
we have not been able to expeditiously dispense justice. People, who
ordinarily should have served their terms, because of the slow pace of
the justice system, are many in our prisons. We have a problem of
people, who have been accused of petty crimes, that have been in prison
awaiting trial more than the period they would have spent if they had
been given justice.
We are contriving, within the ministry,
some measures that will ease the process of the administration of
justice. Because they say justice delayed is justice denied, we intend
also to look at all the cases in our prisons. As of today, all the
crimes and the people within our prison system have been classified
according to the nature of their crimes. What we are working now on is
to also within the ambit of the law ascribe to these persons and
crimes, the prescribed penalties. In the process, we intend to proffer
for approval, alternative punishment mechanism that will make it
possible for somebody in our prison to engage in community service as a
punishment; an alternative strategy to say, within this community
because of the minor nature of the crime, this person can be released
to community leaders or community organisations. The bills to amend the
Prisons Act of 1963 and the Immigration Act of 1963 are before the
National Assembly. We are working with the leadership of the National
Assembly to ensure that these bills are amended.
There have been controversies
regarding the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Immigration Service.
Some have said she is being victimised. What actually happened?
I think this question is very
significant in the sense that it affords me the opportunity to once and
for all clear the air on this issue of victimisation. I have read in the
newspapers, articles insinuating ethnic cleasening or insinuating
victimisation and the rest of them. I have had occasion to clear the air
on the matter. The comptroller -General of Immigration, according to
the rules, still remains a member of staff of the Nigeria Immigration
Service. What transpired was that there was a flurry of activities that
coincided with her movement in the past couple of months. Essentially,
the public service rule provides for an official of that category to
give a notice of retirement from service, three months to the actual
time of her retirement. In this particular instance, the rules were
applied in the sense that Mrs. Uzoma ordinarily is expected to disengage
officially from the service of the Nigeria Immigration Service,
precisely on March 23. Because of the need to adhere strictly to public
service rules; because of the need to ensure transparent transition, it
became necessary that Mrs. Uzoma be on her pre-retirement leave/her
accumulated leave, which she had not enjoyed for the period she had
been Comptroller–General. I do know that the controversies regarding
recruitment, regarding posting and transfer took the centre stage in
twilight of Mrs. Uzoma’s preceding on her accumulated leave and so it
is convenient for some people to go to the air to insinuate many things.
But the truth about the matter is that Mrs. Uzoma is on her
pre-retirement leave, which is within the ambit of the law governing the
public service.
Are you saying her disengagement has nothing to do with the recruitment scandal ?
As a matter of fact, officially I can
tell you that these issues are not primarily responsible for her
pre-retirement leave. As I said, because these issues became topical and
took the centre stage of public discourse at the time she was
preceding, it is convenient for people to continue to insinuate that
these must be responsible for her proceeding on her pre-retirement
leave. But it is sheer historical coincidence that what has happened has
happened. People, who do not know are capable of imputing reasons,
particularly people from a particular ethnic group. As Nigerians
committed to the transformation agenda of this present administration, I
think we must grow beyond ethnicity. We must grow beyond our tribes
where we come from. All this while when Mrs. Uzoma was picked as
Comptroller-General of Immigration, out of a host of other immigration
officers that were also eminently qualified to lead the service; all
these past two years, she has been in the saddle, there had been no
insinuation about marginalisation of other ethnic groups. So I do not
see anything spectacular about somebody who has given some service to
his or her country and then has been asked to abide by the rule of the
game being seen as being victimised. Being victimised for what?
Is it because of the investigative panel that has been set up?
I think the investigative panel has been
unnecessarily hyped especially by the media. What actually happened was
that we had a problem. W e had these allegations of recruitment
racketeering; we had this allegation of lack of transparency in the
recruitment process. Some explanations have been offered. I believe
that it is only responsible that as the supervising minister, if there
were allegations that Nigerians expect to know about, especially for
the integrity of the person that is in question and for the integrity of
the service, and good governance, it is only fair that if we do not
know what people claim to know, it is only fair we set up a machinery
to ascertain the veracity of some of these allegations. I think it is
in the interest of everybody that we should know this. Above all, the
panel has not in anyway intended to indict any person. It is only fair
to know whether things are going wrong and ensure that the morale of
the staff and integrity of the service have not impugned by these
allegations because if we continue to gloss over these things and
pretend nothing is happening the possibility is there that Nigerians and
observers of Nigeria will go to town with the conclusion that certain
things are wrong or are not wrong. Where they are not wrong, I can tell
you that we have the courage to go ahead and sanitise the situation.
No doubt, Nigeria’s borders are very
porous. Terrorists have been coming into the country. Why has the
immigration service not been able to solve the problem?
In collaboration with the Nigeria
Boundary Commission, we have been able to identify 84 regular routes.
We have 1,497 illegal routes.
It is a large number. This is responsible
for the porosity of our borders. 1,497 is certainly a huge number. 84
is also a huge number. When you add these numbers you have over 2,000
routes. Today, Nigeria Immigration Service has 23,000 personnel. If you
look at the whole gamut of sectors and departments in the immigration
service, you will know that they are grossly inadequate for effective
patrolling our borders. It is essentially for this reason because of the
cry of porosity that we have indentified our borders of entry and to
also take measures to ensure that we not only prevent people from
entering the country, but when people, whose activities are inimical to
the political stability of this country, enter we ease them out. In the
last six months, we have put in place measures. Such measures include
the creation of about eight centres within the country. These eight
centres are supposed to monitor activities of aliens in the country and
identify those who enter the country illegally and those who are
criminally-minded.
Also, because we want to be in tune with
evolving migration practice and management in the world, we are into
Memorandum of Understanding with a Chinese company to introduce some
levels of e-surveillance in our borders. We have tried to enlist the
support of the private sector and see how we can construct toll plazas
along the 84 regular borders and to complement this, we are trying to
resuscitate the establishment of international markets within these
border towns. If people can legally transact business across the
borders, the temptation to engage in illegal activities will be
minimised. In addition to that, we are able to construct these toll
plazzas in the next couple of years (a lot of private organisations has
shown interest in partnering the Federal Government). I have taken
deliberate steps to visit some of these border towns to be able to
assess for myself, the inadequacies of the boundaries. In the process,
we have come to terms with the reality that we have problems in our
borders.
What are the problems?
In most of our borders, we do not have
control posts that are in tandem with modern migration practice. So
manual inspection of persons and goods entering the country becomes a
problem and because of the inadequacies of number of persons. There is a
limit to which a number of persons at a particular border post can
control movements in and out of the country. Having identified the
problem of inadequacy of the number of personnel; having identified the
lack of critical infrastructure in some of these border posts, we have
agreed among stakeholders, to take a policy initiative of creating
synergy among security agencies along our borders.
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