A 12 months in the past, when Kemi Nandap stepped into workplace as Comptroller Common of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), she inherited an establishment at a crossroads. Passports have been scarce, border safety was porous, and migration administration felt like an untamed river, surging unpredictably. However in simply twelve months, she has carried out greater than steer the ship. She has rebuilt it mid-voyage, reinforcing its construction with know-how, strengthening its basis with reforms, and sharpening its focus with a transparent imaginative and prescient.
At Nigeria’s huge borders, the place safety has usually been a cat-and-mouse sport between traffickers and smugglers versus immigration officers, the modifications are simple. Border officers now have higher tools, modernized patrol autos, and a stronger sense of objective.
The launch of the Digital Border (e-Border) resolution mission has given them a robust new software—real-time surveillance that tracks actions, identifies vulnerabilities, and tightens management over who enters and leaves the nation. Smugglers and traffickers who as soon as exploited blind spots now discover themselves below an unblinking digital gaze. The newly put in digital gates (E-gates) at worldwide airports have already confirmed their value, flagging no less than 14 people of worldwide safety curiosity in November 2024, successfully unmasking individuals who, in years previous, may need walked out and in unnoticed.
Once more, As of Sunday, January 26, 2025, the API/PNR (Superior Passenger Data/Passenger Identify Report) deployed below Nandap’s watch has recorded 97 instances of individuals of curiosity. Safety isn’t nearly know-how, although. It’s about intelligence, about understanding the place to look earlier than hassle even begins. Nandap has strengthened the NIS’s community of border group informants, reworking whispers into warnings and leads into motion. That vigilance led to the arrest of 84 irregular migrants in Osun State in November 2024, who have been largely younger males, below the age of 20, from Congo Brazzaville, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, engaged in cyber-related crimes. Over 500 others have been tracked down at their varied hideouts in Rivers, Oyo and Ogun states after then. The world of migration administration is now not nearly bodily borders; the threats have gone digital, and below her management, the NIS is adapting.
Passports, for a lot of Nigerians, had lengthy been a supply of frustration. A doc that felt extra like a privilege than a proper. Candidates endured countless delays, unpredictable shortages, and a tedious course of that appeared to stretch indefinitely. That modified when Nandap’s administration keyed into the renewed hope agenda of the forward-thinking President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration, below the supervision of the Minister of Inside, Hon(Dr.) Olubunmi Tunji-0jo and cleared over 200,000 backlogged functions in simply two weeks. No extra uncertainty, no extra ‘no booklets obtainable’ notices. At the moment, the Nigeria Immigration service has satisfactory inventory to fulfill demand, and the rollout of the Enhanced e-Passport at Nigeria’s overseas missions, together with a brand new contactless software system, has introduced long-overdue comfort to Nigerians overseas. She has additionally decentralized the Change of Information (COD) software course of, making it accessible in any respect passport places of work nationwide. The Nigerian passport now stands on firmer floor globally, with its registration below the Worldwide Civil Aviation Group (ICAO), the Public Key Listing (PKD), and the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), enhancing its credibility and safety.
Past processing paperwork and guarding borders, the NIS, below Nandap’s management, has embraced its function as an educator. In colleges, markets, NYSC camps, and passport facilities, officers now interact straight with the general public, warning in regards to the risks of irregular migration. In the meantime, behind the scenes, Nigeria’s visa insurance policies have been revised to replicate present realities, and partnerships with international migration our bodies like ECOWAS, the Worldwide Group for Migration (IOM), ICMPD, and FIAPP have been strengthened to make sure a extra coordinated strategy to migration administration.
Nowhere is the modernization of the service extra tangible than on the newly commissioned Bola Ahmed Tinubu Expertise Innovation Complicated (BATTIC). This state-of-the-art facility is not only a constructing however the nerve heart of the NIS’s digital transformation. It homes the Command and Management Middle, the NIS Information Middle, the ECOWAS Biometric Card Manufacturing Middle, the Visa Software Middle, and a number of other different cutting-edge items designed to enhance effectivity, response time, and nationwide safety.
But, establishments don’t rework on know-how alone. The center of any organisation is its employees, and right here, too, Nandap has left her mark. Greater than 14,000 officers and males have been promoted in 2024, a transfer unprecedented within the historical past of the service. Lengthy-standing backlogs of allowances have been cleared, lifting morale and restoring religion within the system. The NIS is now partnering with the Federal Housing Authority to supply reasonably priced housing choices for officers, with plans underway for a housing mortgage scheme and a medical health insurance plan for personnel and their households.
Nandap’s efforts in Human Capital Improvement have been sturdy, with coaching applications throughout the service institutes and varied establishments, together with however not restricted to the Nationwide Institute for Coverage and Strategic Research (NIPSS), the Nationwide Defence Faculty (NDC), and the Institute of Safety Research (ISS). She launched the Modernization of the Nigeria Immigration Service (MoNIS) Mission, to drive profession development and gender mainstreaming. These initiatives have helped to construct the capability of our personnel and improved NIS service supply. Her coaching applications have centered on constructing the abilities and competencies of personnel in areas comparable to border administration, migration administration, and passport administration. She has additionally applied a mentoring program to pair skilled officers with junior ones.
With 2025 nonetheless recent, the main target is evident: extra digitization, extra effectivity, and a consolidation of the positive aspects already made. A 12 months could not appear to be a lot within the grand sweep of historical past, however in management, it is sufficient to flip tides. Kemi Nandap’s first twelve months have been about foundations—laying down constructions, tightening safety, and restoring religion in an establishment that had lengthy struggled towards inefficiencies. The expectations are greater now, the stakes larger. But when the previous 12 months is any indication, Nigeria’s borders, its residents, and its future are in succesful fingers.• Fagbemigun is an Abuja-based multimedia journalist. He could be reached by way of [email protected]
