Smuggling of migrants now criminal offence – Babandede

The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has criminalised the smuggling of migrants in the country, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.

The Comptroller-General of Immigration, Mohammad Babandede, disclosed this on Wednesday when he paid a courtesy visit to the Edo Governor, Mr Godwin Obaseki.

Babandede said that the criminalisation of smuggling of migrants had commenced since his assumption of office.

While commending the Edo government for its efforts at managing migration and trafficking in the state, he said “since I came on board, we have criminalised smuggling of migrants”.

He explained that the NIS was managing migration, adding that the annual national immigration conference was brought to the state because the state was already working with the service on managing migration.

The NIS comptroller-general noted that host states were usually chosen based on the theme of the conference for a particular year.

“This year, our theme is “Migration Management in Developing Economy: The Role of NIS,” he said.

According to him, the essence of the theme is to let the people know that migration is not all about trafficking and to see how it would be of benefit to the state and the country at large.

Babandede commended the state government for its support to the state command of NIS in particular and the service in general.

In his response, the governor commended the service in dealing with the challenges of migration in the country.

Obaseki noted that the support from the NIS had paved the way for the progress made so far by the state in migration issues.