Hyacinth Chinweuba
The Comptroller General of Immigration, Muhammad Babandede, Thursday said the agency is fully prepared to ensure that foreigners cannot disguise to take part in the general election holding in February.
Babandede said the Service will close the borders and deport foreigners disguising as tourists to take part in the election.
Speaking during a forum in Abuja on how the Service is prepared for the election, the CG said his agency has already taken care of the accreditation of foreign election observers to avoid the issue of illegal observers.
“ We don’t want people to do counter sign operation in the name of election. We don’t want anybody who will come and create tension and crises in our community so any none Nigerian coming in, we must know the purpose of coming.
“If you get a visa to come to Nigeria to do business, to do tourism, or to participate in something else other than monitoring election and we find you monitoring election, we will charge you and deport you because that is not what you asked for.
“It is not allowed in our country. If you come into the country for a purpose you must remain for that purpose. If you are coming to work, work. If you are coming as a tourist, then don’t use the opportunity to participate in election in any way.”
The CG assured the judicious use of the sum of N2.6 billion allocated to the service for election monitoring and participation.
According to him, ” as for the N2.6bn allocated for Immigration, I promise that every officer will be paid his or her allowance. We will fuel our vehicles, we will patrol, provide identity for election so that any officer who decides to participate in election and doesn’t have the identity, he or she will be in trouble. We will provide food for officers so that they don’t have to leave their duty posts and all these things will be made available”.