The Nigerian Immigration Service has deployed an electronic device in the nation’s airports to identify, take a headcount of travellers and aid security agencies to arrest suspected terrorists.
The technology, known as Electronic Advance Passenger Information System, is a web-based application that facilitates the collection of electronic manifest information for international travellers, going into or travelling out of the country.
The initiative is part of the worldwide manhunt for suspected terrorists.
The NIS Public Relations Officer, Ekpedeme King, said in Abuja on Sunday while responding to enquires on efforts by the service to beef up security in the nation’s borders against the backdrop of the ISIS attacks on Paris on Friday, where no fewer than 128 people were killed.
The eAPIS, which collects and passes electronic manifests, has been in use at international airports in the United States since May, 2009, when all general aviation pilots, conducting international flights departing from or arriving to the United States, were requiries to provide passenger manifest and aircraft information to government agencies.
King said that the eAPIS would soon be extended to all the land borders across the nation, noting that the system had assisted the immigration service to have a record of people coming in and leaving the country.
“The Nigerian Immigration Service has already deployed technology (in the airports) to prevent infiltration of foreign terrorists.
“We now use a system called Electronic Advance Passenger Information System which has been deployed in all our airports nationwide. We are working to extend the system to all land borders.
“For the illegal routes, especially in the northern part of the country, we have trained 4,000 officers in border patrol duties and 2,000 personnel of the border patrol corps working with the Department of State Services, have been deployed to patrol the illegal routes.”
Asked how many illegal immigrants had been arrested in recent times, King said he did not have the figures, but added that illegal migrants, entering the country through unapproved routes, were usually not allowed to enter the country.
“What we do is when you enter into the country illegally, through the unofficial routes, we send you back; we don’t allow you into the country, and we do this every day, but those that had entered the country through the regular routes without the necessary documentation are deported to their country,” he explained.
The NIS in September, 2015, arrested two accomplices of Ahmed Al Assir, the Lebanese terrorist, who obtained a Nigerian visa in Beruit, Lebanon.
The accomplices were apprehended in Kano and handed over to the National Security Adviser for further investigation.
Assir, who had been on the wanted list of the Lebanese security forces, was arrested at the airport while attempting to board a Cairo, Egypt-bound flight en route Nigeria with a forged Palestinian passport in August.
Assir became one of the most wanted men in Lebanon after his militia went to battle with the Lebanese army in the port city of Sidon in 2013, resulting in the death of 18 soldiers and dozens of his gunmen.
ISIS was reported to have mentioned Nigeria in one of the French attack tweets on Saturday.
The message read, “When you deploy forces in order to control the city of Saladin and dreaming of Mosul, Sinjar, Haul, Tikrit or Huwaijah or dreaming Mayadin or Jarablus or Karmah or Tel Abyad or Al Quaim or Darnah or dream to reclaim wilderness in the interior Nigeria or masters ‘Asy’asy Sinai desert sand, then surely we just want Rome and Paris Insyaallah before Andalusia.”
Also, Nigeria has been rated as the country most worried about the rise of ISIS, according to a chart compiled by Statista, an online statistic portal.
The data shows the countries most worried about the rise of the terror group, whose British militant member, Jihadi John, was believed to have been killed in a US air strike last week.
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