The President Bola Tinubu Federal Government through the Minister of Interior Dr. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, has said that it has embarked on key reforms towards ensuring that Nigeria’s International Passport regains its lost pride, through key reforms, reduced identity theft and transparency in passport processing, Page 36 learnt.
He made this known while hosting the European Union, EU, Ambassador to Nigeria, Samuela Isopi, on Saturday, in Abuja.
He said exactly: “We have commenced the process to unbottle the bottlenecks in our International Passport application and collection process. Today, we have made huge progress. We are also working on ways to reduce identity theft. We want to make sure the green passport regains its pride and integrity.
“If we are able to solve crime and migration problems in Nigeria, Africa will be better for it.
“Due to the boundaries Africa shares with the EU, our problems are more of an EU problem than any other part of the world. And because we are committed to solving this, we will explore all avenues.”
Urging the EU to support the Federal Government’s drive for reforms in the area of deploying technology to buffer and enhance border management architecture within the country, he said: “The European Union is important to the socio-economic development of Nigeria. Our relationship with the EU is historical in terms of, but not limited to bilateral support.”
The Minister explained that there are also plans to decongest the nation’s Correctional facilities across the country, because over 70 percent of the 79,000 inmates in the nation’s Custodial Centres are awaiting trial.
He stated: “We have over 4,000 inmates in the facilities, for their inability to pay various fines. We believe we can reduce the number of inmates in our Correctional facilities by about forty percent, if we explore non-Custodial alternatives as provided for in the Correctional Service Act.”
On her part, Isopi said that the EU will continue to support Nigeria, as well as provide technical support in managing the illegal aspect of migration, as well as curbing human trafficking and people smuggling.
More news later…
