Passports are available in Rivers State – Comptroller Immigration

The Comptroller of Immigration Service, Rivers State Command,  A.B Yarima, in an exclusive chat with the State Executive of the Rivers State Independent Publishers’ Association (RIVPA) led by its chairman and Publisher of Africa Update Newspaper,  Gloria Boma Harry, gave an insight into the activities of immigration.

Excerpts of Yarima’s response to RIVPA’s proposal for synergy between  the command and the media.

“We as security operatives,  we have our own beat to do, we have our own roles to play as immigration officers.

“Many people when they talk about immigration, they think that everything starts and ends on the issuance of passport. But ours have gone beyond issuance of passport. If you remember,  in the course of the introduction, the PRO has introduced just the few of us that are here. The person sitting there beside me is my second in command who has his own role. He is deputy comptroller in charge of human resource management.  The lady here is our statistician and she is with the planning, research and statistics section, she has her own role to play.

“The other chief superintendent here is in charge of what is called CARPACK, which means Combined Expatriate Residence Permit and Aliens Card, that is synonymous with the American Green Card.

“Whenever an expatriate comes to reside or work in Nigeria, you need to be given permit to stay and work. There are some who are just coming as NGOs,  we know how to place them. There are those who are employed by corporate organizations like maybe Total, Shell, NLNG, Indorama and what have you. So your status determines which type of residence you deserve.

“At the same time, Immigration is also involved in the issuance of what is called ECOWAS Travel Certificate. Aside from the international passport, we issue ECOWAS travel certificate that is being used by Nigerians to travel across the 15 West African Countries and a host of other things .

“We have officers at the Airport, that clear people that come in and go out. In that process, we monitor activities of most Nigerians and Expatriates.  We want to know who comes in from which country, what are you coming to do? Are you coming with your family? Is it only your wife and children? What activities are you involved in? We monitor all these things. All these things are being done by our officers like you rightly pointed out. At the seaports we have our officers. They monitor the ships that come in. What is the nationality of the crew members? What is the nationality of the captain? What activities have they come to do? We do all that.

“In recent times there is what is called e-monitor. For any Nigerian or expatriate that travel out of the country, we have our facility at the airport called e-pass. It will tell us your name, passport number, the flight you travel with, the time and date.  So we have records about people and their activities.

“But some people, anytime they  think about immigration, they feel it is only passport. Ours have gone beyond passport. We also have synergy , aside from the media, we have synergy with the Army, Police, SSS and all security operatives, because we do exchange security information and report on how to nip down things in their butt before they go out of hand.

“Scarcity of booklet is not only an issue peculiar to Rivers State. It is a National issue. I don’t know whether you have read a recent report stated that maybe our partners were having some difficulty.  They wrote it as a scam but it is not actually a scam. They are trying to show the issues with the public private partnership (PPP) entered into, that was signed between the Ministry of Interior and our partners. Along the line there was a little problem that has to do with the current exchange rate. These are people that wanted to have the foreign currency at more government liberalized rate.

“But the government said no, you are in business so you should go to the open market and bid. So along the line, that was part of the problem, why the supply of the booklet is not all that forthcoming.  Incidentally,  these booklets because of the security nature, are not produced here. They are produced in Malaysia and then they are brought here. But that has become a thing of the past. We have the booklet now. What we are only trying to do is, we are trying to produce and issue to those that have the backlog,  though we are doing it based on priority. If we discover that you have done the capturing and you have not being issued then we will deal on the issue of whether it is based on medical case or someone that has gained admission and want to travel or someone who resides over there and is here and want to return back. So we give priority to those ones rather than just issue for somebody who wants to use the passport as a means of identification in the bank.

“The reason for application will determine if we will produce for you. Passport is everybody’s right and entitlement although it is a government property, it can be withdrawn at anytime but we look at the priority of the need of the person. Definitely we have backlog but the backlog is gradually being reduced with time. But that does not mean that new applicants can not apply. Those who want to apply can apply. It is only that we have to be patient. The backlog will be cleared.

“So we thank you very much for coming and we will definitely partner with you, so that we move the command and State and Nation forward. Thank you very much. We appreciate you so much. Thank you.