According to Interior Minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, criminals on the International Police’s red list were taken into custody at airports in Nigeria.
Tuni-Ojo also revealed that criminals declared wanted by various countries across Europe were arrested within two days at the point of entering the country.
He said that the significant investment in monitoring and intelligence-gathering equipment at the country’s border crossings made the arrest possible.
At the “Regional Maritime Border Security in the Context of Counter Terrorism in the Gulf of Guinea” regional workshop on maritime border security in Lagos State on Tuesday, he made this statement.
According to the minister, the offenders came from Italy, the Republic of Ireland, and a few other nations.
“I can assure you that we have largely constructed a strong database and are benefiting from it. You may be interested in the fact that several individuals on the Interpol and red list were arrested at our airports in a span of two days a few weeks ago. It implies that these individuals would have entered.
One arrived from Italy, another from Ireland, and the third, I believe, from a few different nations. These individuals would have arrived in Nigeria eighteen years ago, but we now know that our airports are in sync as they are part of the central system,” he said.
The minister also disclosed that Nigeria, for the first time, has Advanced Passenger Information used to profile passengers coming into the country.
Tunji-Ojo asserted that the API was used to query the passengers’ records, antecedents and travel history.
“Now, we can tell you that Nigeria now has an API solution. We never had that before now. Before now, we were one of the few countries without an API solution, without the opportunity for our immigration officers to pre-profile people coming into Nigeria, not being able to query their background, query their record system, query their antecedents and their travel history.
“We never had that capacity before President Bola Tinubu came on board, but today, I tell you, NIS has that, so if you’re coming into Nigeria today, before you come, we know everything about you.
“We’ve queried you, we know where you’re coming from, and we can tell from their aspect, we’re now fulfilling our international obligations to our international colleagues by being able to uphold the tenets of UN resolution of the API solution that we have at the moment,” he stated.Kemi Nandap, the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Immigration Service, stated earlier that the Service is essential to maritime border security because it prevents foreign terrorist fighters and other criminal elements from abusing the country’s territorial integrity. The Immigration chief claims that crimes related to oil, fishing, piracy, armed robbery, and illegal oil bunkering pose a threat to the safety of vessels and crew.
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