Criminals on the International Police’s red list were apprehended in Nigerian airports, according to Interior Minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo.
Tuni-Ojo further disclosed that offenders identified as sought by many European nations were apprehended within two days of their arrival.
The significant investment in monitoring and intelligence-gathering technology at the country’s border ports, he claimed, made the arrest successful.
His remarks were made on Tuesday in Lagos State during a regional workshop on maritime border security called “Regional Maritime Border Security in the Context of Counter Terrorism in the Gulf of Guinea.”
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.
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“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.
