Nigeria Immigration seeks NITDA partnership for ICT-based border monitoring

Nigeria Immigration Service, as part of an inter-agency collaboration for efficiency and good governance, seeks to partner National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) in the area of technology skills acquisition for effective border policing and operations.

David Parradang, comptroller general of immigration, made this known during a courtesy visit to the NITDA office recently.

Speaking at the occasion, Parradang said the essence of the partnership with NITDA is to develop the IT capacity of the Nigerian Immigration Service especially in the area of data management.

According to him, “we are really very interested because our job now is based on IT. We have database that we need to manage; we have passports, airports movement at the borders, we have staff and other things we need to manage.”

Recounting how the service has been able to deploy ICT in managing Nigeria’s passport, border management among others. Parradang noted that the NIS embraced the use of ICT in its operations with the introduction of the Combined Expatriate Residence Permit and Aliens card (CERPAC).

He disclosed that ever since the service embraced the use of ICT in it processes and operational procedures, notably the introduction of online payment for its facilities, in other words e-revenue collections by the service popularised this mode of revenue collection, leading it to become a Federal Government policy.

In his words, “We were one of the first to start this ,we started E-government in 2005,2006,2007 we developed online payment, e-passport issuance, all tour airports too we have what we passengers registration system we have really factored in the communication technology.

On his part, Peter Jack who represented the NITDA, said the collaboration with the NIS will help in giving Nigeria a robust e-government platform. He added that the Nigerian ICT industry had been growing exponentially and had the capacity of outgrowing the contribution of the oil & gas sector.

“We have an ambitious belief that ICT has the potential to eclipse oil and gas as the main source on national income.”

Jack added that his agency is willing to assist the immigration in the area of training and technology needed to help make their jobs less stressful with the deployment of ICT skills as skill development and acquisition is part of NITDA’s mandate.