February 08, (THEWILL) – The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has confiscated a total of 6,216 National Identity and Voter Cards from some migrants in 21 border States in the country.
The Comptroller-general (CG) of Immigration, Isah Idris Jere, made the disclosure on Wednesday, at a retreat organised for top management staff of the Service including zonal coordinators and comptrollers of Commands/Formations at the Service headquarters in Abuja.
Displaying the bags containing 3,823 National Identity cards and 2,393 confiscated voter cards, the CG said the items were intercepted at Nasarawa, Kebbi, Sokoto, Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Kogi, Yobe, Kwara, Taraba, Plateau, Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Zamfara, Jigawa, Edo, Bauchi, Niger, and three others.
On the forthcoming elections, Jere reiterated the government’s commitment to a free and fair electoral process for the general elections. He charged heads of commands and formations across the country to upscale surveillance activities in all locations including border crossing points to ensure successful elections.
“As Para-military officers, we are prohibited from political partisanship before, during and after the elections. Therefore, the service is seizing the opportunity to sensitise all personnel through their respective comptrollers on the need to remain apolitical before, during and after the elections as members of the service”, he said.
The CG warned officers that any infraction or unprofessional conduct before, during and after the elections would attract severe sanctions.
He directed the Divisional Immigration Officers (DIOs) across the 774 local government areas in the country to deepen surveillance and engagements with the migrant communities in their areas to ensure that no migrant gets involved in the elections.
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