THE Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, has stated that criminals on the red list of the International Police were arrested at Nigerian airports.
Tuni-Ojo also revealed that criminals declared wanted by various countries across Europe were arrested within two days at the point of entering the country.
He said the arrest was made possible due to the heavy investment in surveillance and intelligence-gathering equipment at the nation’s border points.
He stated this on Tuesday at a regional workshop on Maritime Border Security titled “Regional Maritime Border Security in the Context of Counter Terrorism in the Gulf of Guinea,” in Lagos State.
The minister stated that the criminals originated from Italy, the Republic of Ireland and a couple of other countries.
“I can tell you that to a large extent, we have built a robust database, and we are reaping the fruits of that. Now, it will interest you that a couple of weeks ago, within two days, a lot of people on the Interpol and red list were arrested at our airports. It means that these people would have come in.
“One came from Italy, one came from Ireland, the other one, I think, from a couple of countries. These people would have come into Nigeria 18 years ago, but now we know that in terms of our air terminals, they are in sync because it’s integrated into the central system,” he stated.
The minister also disclosed that Nigeria, for the first time, has Advanced Passenger Information used to profile passengers coming into the country.
Tunji-Ojo asserted that the API was used to query the passengers’ records, antecedents and travel history.
“Now, we can tell you that Nigeria now has an API solution. We never had that before now. Before now, we were one of the few countries without an API solution, without the opportunity for our immigration officers to pre-profile people coming into Nigeria, not being able to query their background, query their record system, query their antecedents and their travel history.
“We never had that capacity before President Bola Tinubu came on board, but today, I tell you, NIS has that, so if you’re coming into Nigeria today, before you come, we know everything about you.
“We’ve queried you, we know where you’re coming from, and we can tell from their aspect, we’re now fulfilling our international obligations to our international colleagues by being able to uphold the tenets of UN resolution of the API solution that we have at the moment,” he stated.
Speaking earlier, the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Immigration Service, Kemi Nandap, said that the Service plays a pivotal role in maritime border security by ensuring that foreign terrorist fighters and other criminal elements do not exploit the nation’s territorial integrity.
According to the Immigration boss, maritime insecurity from illegal oil bunkering, fishing, piracy, armed robbery, and oil-related crimes threatens vessel and crew safety.