By Francis Ogwo
The Minister of Interior, Mr Rauf Aregbesola has disclosed that the country’s boarders are now more secured with the deployment of data capturing system at all land entry points.
Aregbesola made this disclosure during a chat with the media in Ilesa at the weekend in which he added that the reopening of land boarders restrict the movement of contraband goods into the country, saying all commodities that are not produced in the ECOWAS subregional countries remain outlawed.
The Minister further stated that government cannot stop the movement of people, especially citizens of the sub regional states, but ensure proper and efficient documentation of inflow in the country.
According to him, the deployment of Migration Data Analysis System (MIDAS) at the nation’s land boarders, migrants data, including Nigerians would be effectively documented through biometric data capturing.
In his words: “Nigeria is a member of ECOWAS and the essence of the sub-regional organisation and its key factor is the free movement of people.
“The passport we are carrying is ECOWAS passport now not even Nigeria passport, what that means is that as a Nigerian, we are ECOWAS citizens and as such there would be natural movement of people across the states but they must be documented.
“The initial boarder closure is not about restricting movement because that movement is natural, but now that four land boarders have been reopened, we must have the document of people entering from our borders, including Nigerians.
“For that, we have deployed technology which is called MIDAS, (Migration Information Data Analysis System) with this technology in the four borders we reopened, it will register whoever passes either a Nigerian or none across our borders and once you have registered, it is for life.
“It captures individuals’ biometric data and other details into a central data base. Nobody can be anonymous through our border posts anymore.
Aregbesola reiterated the status of foreign goods still under ban.
“As a matter of fact, perboiled rice is eaten, I think only in Nigeria and probably Ghana out of the ECOWAS countries, so what is not produced in all of these States remain illegal.”
He also gave details of the motive behind the emphasis on National Identity Number (NIN), the Minister said production of the card is at a huge cost for Nigeria while the NIN which is most important aspect likened to citizens number can be used without expending the scarce resources on production of cards.
The Federal Government had recently ordered the reopening of Nigeria’s land borders after a year of its closure as a measure of curbing the menace of smuggling .
