Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) in collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has unveiled the Observatory Report on Smuggling of Migrants (SOM).
A statement by the NIS spokesperson, Amos Okpu , explained that the observatory report sought to unravel the dynamics of smuggling of migrants through and to Nigeria between 2019 and 2021.
Declaring the event open in Abuja, NIS comptroller-general, Isah Jere Idris assured of the service’s commitment to contain the menace of migrants smuggling, stressing that having fully domesticated the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air in the Immigration Act 2015 (Sections 65-98), the service is statutorily empowered with the necessary legal instrument to prosecute smugglers of migrants.
He thanked the Canadian government and other development partners for their impactful interventions in the fight against smuggling of migrants and other cross-border criminal activities.
The NIS boss reiterated the continuous commitment of the service to collaborate with critical stakeholders in efforts aimed at achieving orderly, humane and responsive migration.
He said the NIS will look at the report closely with a view to enabling processes and procedures to frontally address the issues raised.
Earlier in his remarks, the country representative of UNODC, Dr Oliver Stolpe described the report as insightful and quite useful in understanding and addressing the unfolding migratory realities in Nigeria and in the West African sub-region.
