Insecurity: Declare National Emergency on Land Borders, Says Former NIS Boss

Udeh Chukwurah Joseph is a retired Comptroller-General of Immigration who led the Nigeria Immigration Service from 2005-2010. The outspoken retired CGI, who ran an ICT-driven service, stated that his only regret is the non-implementation of the Federal Executive Council’s approval of the construction of Auto-Gate Entry Plazas at the nation’ borders amongst other sundry issues. He also charged me he government to declare national emergency on the land borders.

He spoke with Kuni Tyessi recently 

Many have expected you to join active politics, what has kept you away?

Wow, you know that we all cannot be in active politics. We are all politicians in our different little enclaves. I actually admire those who play the real game of politics. I do not think I am cut out for it. It is like asking why I am not a footballer. It is simple, I know very little how to play football and admire the game and the players. Politics requires so much money in our environment; I do not have a deep pocket. Not being in politics does not mean one cannot serve his people or the country in other capacities. However, I am ready always to make my contribution towards community/National development.

How has life been after retirement?

It has been quite interesting; I feel fulfilled and exceedingly contented that in my chosen career at the highest level, I had the privilege and the opportunity to serve the country and contribute to the development of a modern ICT service driven Immigration Service. Looking back every day, I give thanks to God for granting me the grace, strength and courage for the positive and meaningful contributions I made to the Service in particular and our country in general. To say the least as God permits, I have the liberty to use my time as it pleases me. 

What can you say are some of the legacies you left behind as CGI?

Joseph Udeh leadership lead to a revolution at NIS. During the interview session by the Presidential Committee set-up at the time to scout for a CGI to replace our boss, late Lady (Mrs.) Uzoamaka Nwizu and restructure the NIS, I told the panel of interviewers that I would run an ICT driven Immigration service. I believe that statement was impactful and played a role in my appointment. So, when I was appointed, I did what I said I would do.  I did not have the luxury of a hand over note; however, the recommendations of the Presidential Committee on the restructuring of the NIS were the document that guided me in most of the decisions I took. 

I started by getting all the staff nominal roll and salary dockets in the Immigration Commands in the states to the Headquarters in Abuja. We were plagued with differences and disparities in salaries of officers and men of the same rank but serving in different locations. That was a serious anomaly. Instinctively I asked my officers to scout around cyber cafés in town to get young

 computer literate people to work for us.

 About 30 young men and women were assembled. We assigned them to upload all the Salary dockets and the nominal roll of officers both in the Headquarters and State Command offices and convert all the salary documents from hard copies to electronic soft copies, which we domiciled in the headquarters. That done, salary payment became centralized. Officers and men now knew what their salary was.

The centralisation also brought about a good deal of savings as leakages were blocked. We knew exactly what our staff strength was and what money was required for payment of salaries. The savings made from the exercise was used in settling a large amount of outstanding staff allowances, which most officers even never knew they were entitled to. For the first time we got an electronic copy of staff nominal roll. We could now boast of harmonised staff salary irrespective of location. 

This exercise without fear of contradiction was the beginning of our digitalisation story in the NIS.  Still basking in the success of our digital salary payment adventure, we pursued the Nigeria Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), the Federal government agency in charge of allocating IP addresses to government agencies and was allocated the address www.immigration.gov.ng. The website, launched in 2005, connected the Nigeria Immigration Service to the world.

What about your contributions towards human capacity?

On human capacity development, the job had to be done by our officers. So training and retraining of our staff became our hallmark. We acquired and sent more computer desktops to our training schools and made it mandatory for officers of the Service to be computer literate. We needed to urgently move with time, change our attitude to work and our manual ways of doing our job to digital service delivery. We sent our officers to NIPPS, National War College Jaji, Defence Intelligence Agency, the DSS and ASCON for training.

 We also sent our border patrol operatives to the Police training school in Gwoza, Borno state, for paramilitary assignments and training on weapon handling and the use of fire- arms. Apart from the knowledge acquired from these training, interaction with other security agencies boosted the morale of staff and fostered inter agency relationships. The deployment policy where officers were not allowed to spend more than four years in a location was re-activated. We carried out a major nation-wide transfer exercise that was nicknamed a -tsunami. 

I felt that every officer needed to have a new experience of the job and to bring about integration between and amongst the officers in the North and those in the South. A good number of officers had never moved from their preferred posts. Some had overstayed their usefulness to the NIS in their duty posts and had become bottlenecks as they resisted transfer. Some had even won the toga of untouchables.  We developed a forensic laboratory equipped with Video Spectral Comparator for the detection of forged passports, visas and other travel documents under my watch. 

We established relationship and connectivity with the INTERPOL 24/7 data- base in Lyon, France. This gave us access to classified information on forged and stolen passports, and identity theft. During my administration, Govt. granted approval for Immigration officers to return to Nigerian Embassies and High commissions abroad to handle passport administration and other immigration related matters. We introduced passport intervention programmes for the issuing passports in locations out-side Embassies or High Commissions. 

On my appointment as CGI, I was given a time line to migrate from the Machine-Readable Passport (MRP) to the e-passport. The problems associated with the MRP created entrenched corruption and lawlessness, double acquisition of passports by Nigerians, outright stealing of blank passport booklets, Identity theft, to passports been sold in the thriving Oluwole black market in Lagos. In order to deal with the problems, we needed guts and decisiveness. With the backing of my Minister, President Olusegun Obasanjo and collaboration with other Security agencies, we were able to dismantle that fake passport cartel. 

You alluded that E-passport was Olusegun Obasanjo’s idea when he was president and not that of his predecessor as many believe. Can you clear the misconception? 

Unknown to most Nigerians, the e-passport was President Olusegun Obasanjo’s idea.  On a visit to Malaysia, he found out that Malaysian Immigration had same challenging menace of non-Malaysians having accessing to Malaysian international passports.  He noted that they surmounted their problem with the deployment and use of passports embedded with electronic chips that could read the biometric details of the passport owner using special equipment.

 On his return, he directed the NIS management to visit Malaysia and get more information on the new technology. It is worthy of note that a Malaysian company Iris Smart Conrad Company of Malaysia developed and deployed the use of e-passports globally. Since that company had Nigerian Partners, it was only wise for the NIS to engage their Nigerian Partners for our e-passport project.

Having cleared the way for the production and roll out of the e-passports, the next challenge was how to collect revenue and remit to Govt. Payment for passport then was by bank drafts, which was subject to abuse. In all honesty, I had heard of e-payment but did not know how it worked. I approached and discussed with the then chief Economic adviser to the President Obasanjo, Professor Ojowu who advised me to discuss the issue with the National Planning Commission. We held series of meetings with them as advised and they introduced Socket Works Ltd to us.

 We worked tirelessly with the company and came up with electronic method of collecting revenue from the sale of e-passport booklets and other sundry Immigration services, and remit accruing revenue directly to government. I was particularly lucky in that my Minister then, Dr Iyorchia Ayu was supportive of our efforts. He believed in the novel ideas I brought to change our manual ways of doing things. The Minister took our Memos to the Federal Executive Council and secured approval for us to commence e-Immigration which encompassed e-payment collection.  

The e-payment system enabled us to generate unprecedented amount of money totaling about two million ($2m) in the first six months of the e-passport roll out from only four foreign Missions and eight billion N8billion from six states of the federation used in the Pilot scheme. The beauty of the on-line payment system was that revenue collected was secure, and collection could be viewed online, real time.

 The system also made e-passport administration much easier, for both applicants and the Immigration staff. Passport applicants applied from the comfort of their space thereby reducing corruption and possible chances of manipulation of applicants by the Immigration personnel. We introduced a new electronic border management system, the e-PARS used for the automatic clearance of passengers using computers and ICT tools. 

The system automatically stored information of arriving and departing international passengers. The e-PARS system has metamorphosed to MIDAS, but the functions are the same. It was the e-PARS in use during my tenure that enabled the Immigration Service retrieve the information on the travel history of the terrorist underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab. The achievement was not a mean feat for the Service and country at that time, as the newly installed e-PARS made it possible for Immigration to retrieve the travel history of the terrorist. 

Another outstanding benefit of the e-PARS was the approval granted by ICAO, allowing American and European commercial flights to come into Nigerian Airports.  Before the installation of e-PARS, ICAO had declared Nigeria International airports as unsafe because they did not meet global aviation security standards so the lifting of the ban was a huge success for Nigeria. There were some other innovations that I initiated and completed in the NIS that I may not be able to remember or cover in this interview.

It is believed that your successor, Muhammad Babandede introduced digital operations to the service, can you react to this?

I believe that, I have given you an accurate background of our transition to the digitalisation of the NIS, and my contribution to the Service and Country. I believe that the information I have given you are verifiable and well documented. Everything I have said were done, during the regime of President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Umaru Musa Ya’radua. So, it pre- dates Babandede CGI (rtd). Therefore, it is expected that Babandede may have improved on some of what we did, and may have contributed some new ideas.

 Do not forget that, there have been about four CGIs after me, before Babandede was appointed. I may not be able to say for sure who did what after me. I completed the administrative block and added some structures for a positive development and growth of the Service. We moved our headquarters located at the Federal Secretariat in Area One Garki, Abuja to the Immigration Village in Sauka, along the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Road, Abuja. We built a good number of State Command offices during our tenure. 

I am happy to let you know that a major building called Joseph Udeh Glass House in the Immigration Village is named after me. I also learnt that the number one uniform worn by the

 officers and men is called Udeh. I had long left the Service when this honor was bestowed on me. This is a huge honor and I am eternally grateful to God Almighty that those who came after me acknowledged my contribution to the development of NIS and I will never take it for granted.

Given the opportunity to advice the current head of the agency on ways to better it, what will it be?

I will advise them to revisit the Federal Executive Council approval on the construction of the Entry plazas, and installation of integrated electronic control systems in our ports of entry into the country in order to address the issue of our porous borders. I will remind them that border control and security is the statutory duty of NIS. I will also tell them to look seriously into training and retraining.

  The effective utilisation and deployment of border patrol officers and men. Passenger interviewing procedure/format need to be standardised. Immigration officers are the first contact between the country and foreign visitors.  If we must open up our country to the international community for any meaningful development, our Immigration officers must be courteous and top-notch.

Do you have any regret in all that you did as head of Immigration?

My only regret is the non implementation of the Federal Executive Council’s approval of the construction of Auto-Gate Entry Plazas due to the unresolved dispute between the contractors who won the bid for the project thirteen (13) years after my retirement from Service. Completion of the project would have improved the embarrassing look of almost all Nigeria land border entry ports, and reduced the economic and security challenges that the country is currently facing. 

The project is still very relevant, laudable, and should be implemented, with modification. I will recommend that Mr. President declare a national emergency on the country’s land borders. Govt. has never taken any serious action in providing physical barrier along Nigeria’s porous borders since independence. 

Government cannot continue to allow unchecked entry into Nigeria. Government must take urgent steps by providing needed infrastructure to check the free entry of people into our country. Existing laws and the ECOWAS protocols on free movement of persons, Right of Residence and Establishment within the sub-region must be strictly enforced.  It is pertinent to note that we provide roofs, doors and windows in buildings for adequate security. Why can’t we provide physical infrastructure at critical points along our land borders and create secure corridors for passage of animals and live- stock?  

On a lighter note, who is your idol?

I admire and celebrate people who are honest, principled and supportive of others irrespective of tribe, language or religion. I respect charitable people.

People expected you to join active politics, what has kept you away?

Wow, you know that we all cannot be in active politics. We are all politicians in our different little enclaves. I actually admire those who play the real game of politics. I do not think I am cut out for it. It is like asking why I am not a footballer. It is simple, I know very little how to play football and admire the game and the players. Politics requires so much money in our environment; I do not have a deep pocket. Not being in politics does not mean one cannot serve his people or the country in other capacities. However, I am ready always to make my contribution towards community/National development.

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Government cannot continue to allow unchecked entry into Nigeria. Government must take urgent steps by providing needed infrastructure to check the free entry of people into our country. Existing laws and the ECOWAS protocols on free movement of persons, Right of Residence and Establishment within the sub-region must be strictly enforced