The Minister of Interior for Nigeria, Mr. Abba Moro, recently visited the United Kingdom on a fact-finding mission on prison reforms, and more importantly sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the British government of behalf of Nigeria. African Voice caught up with him. Though we missed getting in on the occasion, African Voice did the next best thing: to engage the Hon. Minister on a few issues that would educate all on the activities of his ministry and contemporary issues
African Voice: Given the position and importance of your Ministry to Nigerians at home and in diaspora, what would you say that you have done differently since you assumed office as Minister?
Abba Moro: First of all, on assumption of duty, my priority was to practically change the orientation of staff of the Ministry to see government work as personal work; to realise that the essence of government and participation in public service is service delivery. Being part of government is also a rare privilege that other segments of the Nigerian society should gladly take with all sense of responsibility. This is against the backdrop of the general feeling that government job is nobody’s job – that it is everybody’s job. I think that in that regard, we are winning because many people now see that responsibility as a call to duty.
Secondly, the Minister of Interior is ordinarily charged with the responsibility of maintaining the internal security of the country, fostering the maintenance of internal security for good governance. So against the back drop of the current security challenges that we have in the country, the Minister of Interior that has jurisdiction over the Nigeria Immigration Service that has a mandate of controlling our borders ensuring that criminally-minded illegal immigrants do not find their way into Nigeria; the Prisons Service that takes custody of all persons that have infracted on the law; the Federal Fire Service that is the first responder to national emergencies and disasters and lastly the Nigeria Civil Defence and Security Corps are all within the Ministry of Interior. It is therefore a very herculean task to mobilise all these departments of government to ensure internal security for the country. Of course you are aware that the primary purpose of government is to tend to the welfare and security of the lives and property of citizens. And so this government is taking very sure and steady steps to ensure the internal security of the country and the Ministry of Interior is properly positioned also to contribute its quota towards maintaining internal security in the country. The Nigeria Immigration Service, for instance, has been sufficiently mobilised and orientated to ensure that it discharges its duty/mandate of ensuring that people who don’t have valid travel papers do not infiltrate into our country to perpetrate violence. And in this regard, in addition to hiring more hands, we are procuring appropriate technology to complement the human surveillance of our borders. We are also embarking upon the aggressive practice of ensuring the proper maintenance of biometric data of all Nigerians and foreigners alike. The Prisons being reformed – the orientation and mentality of prison workers are being properly aligned to the demands of maintaining the security within the prisons. The massive congestion that has been the bane of our prisons in the country is being ameliorated by the construction of additional prisons, and rehabilitation of existing prisons; and, of course, with the collaboration of the judiciary, the expeditious dispensation of justice to prisoners in the country. The Civil Defence Corps today is one of the most visible security outfits in the country that has the primary mandate of maintaining vital, critical, national assets and infrastructure. It is in this regard that the Civil Defence Corps has performed very creditably towards ensuring the safety of our oil pipelines and electricity cables. Of course, we are re-organising and repositioning the Federal Fire Service to be more operational than it is at the moment and we have in the pipeline a construction of additional (and ambitious) 227 urban, metropolitan and rural fire stations in the country. We are hoping that this massive and holistic approach towards ensuring that our internal security is not compromised as a nation.
African Voice: Given the recent talk of prisoners transfer to Nigeria because of the l number of Nigerians in British prisons out-numbering other African nations, does this arrangement have government backing and is Nigeria also now able to privatise prisons in Nigeria?
Abba Moro: The Federal Government is very much at home with the concept of prisoner transfer and some form of Memorandum of understanding has been signed between the government of UK and the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Today, I can tell you that plans are at an advanced stage towards amending the appropriate status that deals with prisoner consent that has been a very serious obstacle towards issuing a final agreement on the prisoner transfer desire between the two governments of Nigeria and the UK. Only recently I have had a meeting with the UK Minister of Justice where we discussed various aspects of the impending agreement and we agreed that efforts should be intensified towards ensuring the passage of appropriate legislations to give effect to the prisoner transfer arrangement between the two countries. I can assure you that on the part of the government of Nigeria will do everything we can to ensure that we see through this agreement. Don’t forget that the government of Nigeria believes that whether you are a prisoner or you are free Nigerian on the street, you are a Nigerian, and we have responsibility as a government to ensuring your welfare. Therefore it is only appropriate that if our persons or Nigerians are in prison outside the country, especially countries where you cannot be guaranteed humane treatment and early justice; we will be very pleased to receive such Nigerians back in the country. Not only Britain, we have reasons to enter bilateral agreements with Germany, Austria, and are working on a proposal with the Slovakian government and sundry other countries on re-admission, and so we believe that Nigerians in the diaspora, either legally or illegally, have a role to play in the development of the country. So we are gradually, especially with this new administration that believes in transforming and changing the face of the Nigerian economy for the better that everybody should get involved. We are entering this agreement with the government of the UK, not necessarily because Nigerias are in large numbers in their prisons but because it is the right thing to do. We believe that Nigerians who are willing, by law, to come and serve out their terms of prison in the country should feel very free to do so. That is the reason why we are entering into these agreements as a government. I can tell you that some of the reforms that we are carrying out in the prisons system in Nigeria are geared towards accommodating this new arrangement between, not just Britain but, other countries of the world.
On the privatisation of prisons, that is an aspect that i have come (here) to experience first hand in this place. We intend, like other aspects of government as Mr. President, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan GCFR has indicated, to engage the private sector in running the system because we believe in this administration that government is by the people for the people. Therefore all persons should be involved and engaged in the process of running the system, and so we are thinking of ensuring effective and efficient service delivery in the prisons like other aspects of Nigerian economy. We are actually seriously working towards ensuring that the private sector is involved in the running of our prisons especially on areas that will not gladly compromise the security of our prisons.
African Voice: Is your Ministry capable of manning our several border posts as we hear of unmanned, un-marked border posts unknown to the authorities?
Abba Moro: Let me say that I don’t see this as a very unique Nigerian phenomenon. All over the world, there are regular approved routes into the countries. At the same time there are also routes that desperate immigrants use to enter the country outside the eye of the law. So I do not think the issue of regular/irregular routes is a purely Nigerian phenomenon. Having said that let me say that, we are working very seriously towards ensuring that we adequately man our various border posts. It was a deliberate effort of this administration and the Ministry of Interior in particular, that we have identified regular, authorised, legally approved routes and irregular, illegal routes. The purpose of identifying them is to be able to deploy our resources in such a manner that government should be able to ensure proper entry into the country whether you are going to exploit the existence of illegal routes or the legal routes, Nigeria should be aware that you are entering the country and that is why we are intensifying our efforts at biometric data capturing exercise to ensure that we are current with the list of persons that are in this country and doing what.
African Voice: Is the government aware of the fast growing Chinese population in Nigeria? Is there a policy towards this?
Abba Moro: The government is aware of the presence of a sizeable number of Chinese in the country, no doubt about it, because today Nigeria is massively engaging in infra-structural development and rehabilitation and the Chinese by history and experience have been known to be very deft in this area so we are engaging the Chinese and some companies that also want to do business with Nigeria also come in with approved expatriate quota of foreigners that include also Chinese. I am aware of the worrying concern of Nigerians on the presence of the Chinese. But contrary to the fears that they express, not many Chinese, to my knowledge, are illegally in the country. They are there because of the shear volume of the business that they do with Nigeria on the basis of which approvals has been given to them to bring in appropriate technologies and skills. But I also assure you that government is taking every step to ensure that every person that is in Nigeria, Chinese inclusive, are legally authorised to be in Nigeria.
African Voice: What qualifies a foreigner who is married to a Nigerian living abroad with the Nigerian for about 30 years with children of about that age bracket but when they want to go to Nigeria, the mother is treated as a foreigner but the kids are treated as Nigerians because of their father and are granted Nigerian passport but not their mother?
Abba Moro: You will notice that we have the Nigeria Immigration Service in many countries and missions of the world. For a Nigeria (Naija) wife as they are referred to by people i.e. a woman that is married to a Nigerian, citizenship by registration and all that is required is for the person to apply and for the relevant government agencies to attest to the marriage with the basic requirements of presentation of marriage certificate, wedding certificate, and the rest of them, and attestation of wedding by relevant agencies like the State Security Service, Nigeria foreign missions, the state governments and communities of these individuals. Once these basic requirements are met, they are automatically entitled to Nigerian citizenship. Where they do not want Nigerian citizenship, special immigrant status can be granted. I do not see any hassles in the way of a foreigner married to a Nigerian or Nigerians wanting to become Nigerians. Apart from meeting the basic requirements for our record purposes, they are automatically regarded as citizens of Nigeria by virtue of marriage
