The Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) and the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) have expressed commitment to strengthen collaboration with the Police Command in Lagos, toward curbing crimes.
This decision was made at separate courtesy visits by Mr David Adebambo, the Comptroller, NIS, Lagos State command, Alagbon, Ikoyi, and Mr Michael Awe, the NCS Controller, Murtala Mohammed Airport (MMA) Area command.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the meetings were held on Tuesday, at the command Headquarters in Ikeja.
During the visit, Adebambo said that it was important that police and immigration synergised for the security of Lagos state.
“The primary aim of all the uniformed personnel is the security of the nation, it is important that we synergise and cooperate to ensure that we give Nigeria the best that we can, during our service to the nation.
“We are here to seek cooperation, collaboration and synergy with the police in managing the internal security of Lagos, particularly and Nigeria at large,” he said.
According to him, NIS is tasked with the management of migration and the borders.
“People talk about the border area being porous. To curb the issue of incessant and unmitigated migration of irregular migrants to Nigeria, the service introduced E-border.
What is E-border? At the border areas, there are installations of masts and cameras are installed on them, these cameras can see more than a kilometer radius. So attached to this, we have the control centres.
“If there is any movement around the border area, with those cameras, we are able to capture the movement, and the officers on border patrol are signalled to inform them of the movement.
“We can liaise with other agencies, it could be the army or the police to neutralise the threat,” he said.
Responding, the Commissioner of Police in Lagos state, Mr Olohundare Jimoh, said the police would do its best to strengthen the existing cordial relationship between the two agencies.
Jimoh said the immigration and police are siblings and partners in ensuring that Lagos, the Centre of Excellence, remained secure and safe.
He said there must be focus on achieving results for the government of the day, under President Bola Tinubu.
“I want to assure you that we are going to strengthen this cooperation to achieve maximum productivity for the nation, in the area of boosting the economy and ensuring that e-sorting business is further improved across the country.
“On a daily basis, we do a lot of things in common to ensure that we are serving the same father, which is the Federal Government of Nigeria, and the same populace, which is the Nigerian populace and we must be on the same page all the time.
“If Lagos is safe, it is assumed that the whole country is safe. This is a gateway to the nation. We have the port here, the airport here, and the land border,” he said.
Also, during his visit, the Customs controller, MMA Area command, Awe, said the purpose of coming to the command was to build on their existing synergy for continuity.
He said that there was need for synergy, particularly now that the issue of insecurity was becoming the order of the day.
“Recently, within my command, we had a seizure of some military accoutrements, arms and ammunition, camouflage uniforms, drones, and others based on the eagle eyes of my officers and based on the instructions that 100 per cent examinations must be carried out.
“By so doing, we were able to get those items and seized them and not only that, we were able to trace the source to Turkey, we repatriated those ones and they were prosecuted and imprisoned.
“These are the areas we need most synergy because we have just one father which is Nigeria. We have to do it together, that is the only way we can enjoy peace and tranquility in the country,” he said.
The CP while responding, assured the Nigeria customs of the command’s commitment and readiness to ensure increased collaboration, for better service delivery.
“We are going to keep in tune to ensure that the good investments of the Federal Government of Nigeria and the state government are well protected and achieves the desired results.
“Police is customs, customs is police, we will continue to collaborate , we have a father, that is Nigeria, we are going to give all the support in ensuring that your target is upshot beyond what is expected,” Jimoh said.