Senate probes immigration over alleged irregularities

The senate on Tuesday resolved to probe the Nigeria immigration service (NIS).

George Sekibo, senator representing Rivers east, moved a motion that the scope of the probe be expanded to include concessions and public private partnership (PPP) of the organisation.

While moving the motion on the floor of the senate, Sekibo said concessions and PPP were “eating up” the immigration and had taken it away from its core mandate.

The senator said it was important to investigate NIS to get a clearer picture of the alleged irregularities in the system.

“While considering the report on the budget of the Nigerian immigration service (NIS) in 2016, the senate took a decision that the committee on interior investigate the consultancy services of NIS and resolution was referred to the committee on interior,” Sekibo said.

“Mr President, as a committee we have done our preliminary findings but we hit a very strong wall – the resolution did not capture what we are looking for exactly. The resolution is talking about consultancy services while in the immigration what is really eating up the system is concessions and public private partnership.

“The services given by the federal ministry of interior and of NIS are not limited to consultancy alone but include concessions and public private partnership which has taken away the core mandate of the organisation.”

Contributing to the debate, Solomon Olamilekan, senator representing Lagos west, lamented that after PPP and concessions only 20 percent goes to Immigration as revenue.

“Under the internally generated revenue of  NIS, 80 percent accruing to immigration go under the PPP and concessions and only a paltry sum of 20 percent is the actual revenue coming to Nigeria immigration,” he said.

The motion was adopted by the upper legislative chamber after it was put to a voice vote by Bukola Saraki, senate president.

The senate committee on interior chaired by Sekibo is expected to turn in its report in four weeks.