Insecurity: Immigration starts E – registration of non-Nigerians

Following the spate of Insecurity in the country, the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has started E registration of non-Nigerians in the country. The Assistant Controller General of Immigration and Zonal Coordinator in charge of Zone A, Ikeja, Lagos, Muhammed Alhaji Alfa, has, therefore, appealed to Landlords, traditional rulers, community leaders, and religious organizations to encourage tenants and faithful to key into the registration to avoid being the wrath of the law.

ACG Alfa said the need for E-registration for all Non-Nigerians who are living in Nigeria was the idea of the Federal government which must be implemented to the later. He said provided the foreigners have been living in the country for more than 90 days, they are expected to register with Nigeria Immigration Services. Alfa who made this call yesterday while decorating the newly upgraded and promoted officers at Zonal office in Ikeja, Lagos reiterated President Muhammadu Buhari, amnesty for foreigners who are living in Nigeria illegally saying they are permitted to stay if they have appeared before immigration for registration.

He further stated that the illegal immigrants would be given amnesty and the penalty expected to pay will be waved if they comply with the exercise. He said the exercise has commenced in NIS offices in Ikoyi and Ikeja. He said: ” If you are a resident in Nigeria and you have not been able to renew your resident’s card permit within the period of six months of amnesty, you are free to register with Immigration service because amnesty covers you.

“If you are in Nigeria for a temporary work permit or business permit or you are in the country for Visa on arrival and you have not been able to extend your stay after the expiration of the visa you are covered by the amnesty from the FG. “We are telling on Nigerians in our mist with irregular situation to come forward and they will not be compelled to pay fine or to be penalised, because the period of Mr. Presidents’ amnesty has covered you” “The exercise will go down to give us precisely the accurate number of expatriates and non Nigeria in our midst.

It is a wonderful development that has been practice outside of Nigeria successfully and we do hope that it will be more successful as well in Nigeria.

“It is important that officers and men are to discuss it with traditional rulers, neighbors, family, and friends as to the importance of the exercise to indicate the non-Nigerians who are residing in their communities to encourage them to come forward to register”

“They should not entertain any fear that they have been staying in Nigeria irregularly and probably they will compel you to pay penalty”

“a very important aspect of the registration is that you are expected to register in the area where you resides, for instance, those that live around Ikoyi will register at our Lagos State Command, Alagbon and those that live around Ikeja will come to our Zonal Office to register”

“After the amnesty period, if you are caught with invalid papers or documents, the law will be allowed to take its cause,”

Alfa said. He added that quite a number of security challenges we have in this country as a result of non-Nigeria residents and it will be very unwise at this point in time if we don’t know who is a Nigerian and who is non-Nigerian. “There are people who have been living in this country for well over 2 to 3years hiding and they hardly come out during the day because their papers are not correct ”

“ The government is now assuring that the exercise is not to penalize you but rather to have your records in our database, to know where you reside and what business you are doing. However, the NIS boss warned the officers who are just upgraded and promoted that it was not just about upgrading and promotion but there is a lot of responsibility attached to it, particularly to those of you who are just upgraded, remember you were junior officers at one time.

Every day you get a compliment, but suddenly, you jumped from junior officer to senior officer because sometimes you will expect that your colleagues who are a junior officer like yourself will not recognize. The fact that you are now senior officers and if they did not pay you compliment don’t be crazy at them for with time they will get to be adjusted.