Dambazau Calls on Nigerians to Work for Peace
The Minister of Interior, Abdulrahman Dambazau has said that it was the responsibility of every Nigerian including the security agencies to secure peace in the North East.
Dambazau said in addition to winning the war against Boko Haram in the area, it was pertinent for every Nigerian to cooperate with the government to bring a lasting peace to the area.
The Minister stated this Friday at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA0 Lagos when he toured the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) facilities at the airport.
He noted however, that for Nigeria to win the peace in the North East, all the country’s borders including land, sea and air must be well-secured especially by Immigration personnel.
He decried that all the weapons used by insurgents got into the country through borders and charged immigration personnel at all borders to carry out their duties diligently without trampling on the rights of travelers.
He said, “We all have the responsibility to win the peace in the North East. One aspect is to win the war, but we need to win the peace in that part of the country too. To do this, we have to secure the borders to prevent people from interfering in the peace we have at the moment.
“As we all know, all the weapons that are circulating through Nigeria come through the borders and the immigration is in charge of all the borders we have in this country. We have designed a programme to visit the borders in the North East and there is a strategy to ensure that this lasts. We also want to introduce some certain technologies that would aid the immigration’s work.”
Also speaking at the occasion, the Comptroller of Immigration, MMIA Command, Mrs. Chizoba Dibi disclosed that the command processed a total number of 1,097,250 arrivals in 2015 while additional 1,239,969 departures were processed within the period.
In 2015, she added that the Command refused 424 departures from the country, regular deportees, 4938, special deportees, 884, repatriated foreigners five; Nigerian returnees, 2176 and one stowaway in the period.