Posted by From Kingsley Nwezeh in Abuja on
Comptroller General of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), Mr Joseph Udeh, said yesterday that the service has sacked 200 personnel who were involved in passport racketeering and what he described as "official touting" in their passport offices.
Comptroller General of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), Mr Joseph Udeh, said yesterday that the service has sacked 200 personnel who were involved in passport racketeering and what he described as "official touting" in their passport offices.
The Immigration boss told newsmen in Abuja that "Corruption in the passport office is the biggest problem for the Nigerian Immigration Service. Official touts are out there, immigration officers, making things difficult, muddling up things", he said.
He disclosed that 200 passport officers were removed leaving only 35 "useful ones" who were relevant to the passport office while noting that investigations were still on-going at the end of which the affected staff would be formally dismissed from the service.
"We are not resting on our oars, we are fighting it. Sometimes people put pressure on me to get posted to the passport office but we are resisting it. We removed over 200 people leaving only 30 useful ones.
We are handling corruption cases and we will dismiss them", he said.
He stated that his administration was deploying new measures aimed at curbing the trend even as he commended President Olusegun Obasanjo for his anti-corruption drive without which it would have been difficult to confront graft in the service.
"We will deploy new measures that would rid the service of corruption. We have quite a number of solutions and we are applying them", he noted, even as he called on passport applicants to present genuine documents to ease the work of the service.
On the Immigration Act of 1963, Udeh pointed out that provisions of the act were no longer in tandem with modern day practice hence the move to review it.