WHY WE STOPPED 150 PASSENGERS AT LAGOS AIRPORT – IMMIGRATION

…issues 58,000 visas on arrival

The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) in Lagos has, in the last four months, refused departures to 150 passengers who were about travelling via different airlines.

The 150 Nigerians, it was learnt, were suspected to be victims of human trafficking.

This was made possible through the efforts of the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of the command which was set up to foil suspected victims of human trafficking.

Daily Trust on Sunday reports that many Nigerian girls were trafficked to Europe on the pretence of getting jobs only to fall victim to human traffickers who subject them to psychological and sexual torture.

Comptroller of Immigration at the Airport, Mr Abdullahi Musa Usman disclosed that officers at the command have beefed up their screening and profiling mechanisms to track suspected victims of human trafficking. He said the officers are also on the lookout for traffickers.

Usman said the 150 people ranged between the ages of 16 and 40 years and were denied boarding because they could not fulfil the requirements “of passing through the control post.

“They didn’t know what they were travelling out to do and where they were going to. We then stopped and counselled them and they are satisfied that going out there would be a problem for them,” he said, adding that many people were falling prey to traffickers because of greed and ignorance.

Speaking with newsmen, the Immigration boss said the service has processed over 58,000 visas on arrival for international passengers between January 2019 till date. It has also commenced the implementation of the Migrant Information Data Analysis System (MIDAS) for passengers flying into and out of the country for the first time.

Usman said MIDAS was designed by the NIS to ease passengers profiling. Under the new system, the NIS personnel on duty would capture 10 fingerprints of the affected travelers while subsequent travels by such passengers will not require them to carry out digital capturing of the 10 fingers except the index fingers.

“All these achievements were made possible by the training we are giving to our officers and personnel on a daily basis,” he added.

Addressing some personnel who were undergoing an inhouse training at the Immigration Training Centre at the airport, Assistant Comptroller-General of Immigration, MA Alfa urged them to sit up and justify the huge investment in training by the leadership of the service.

In a related development, Access Bank donated office materials to the command to aid the processing and profiling of passengers.

Executive Director, Retail Banking of Access Bank, Victor Etuokwu said the bank donated the facilities to support the activities of the command, saying immigration has been efficient in its operations.