Agenda for Rauf Aregbesola, the new Minister of Interior -By Jide Ojo

Nigeria’s new Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, on August 21, 2019 caused ripples shortly after his inauguration when he honestly admitted to the press that he knew little about the policies and operations of his ministry. Some people believed he was unsuitable for the position largely because his ministry has a lot to do with internal security of the country and he being a civilian taking over from a predecessor who is a military general was considered unfit. What Aregbesola’s accusers choose to ignore or do not understand is that he was a former governor of Osun State for two terms of eight years. In that position, he was the Chief Security Officer of the state and chaired many security meetings. Moreover, as a minister he is not going to be directly involved in operational matters but will be playing a supervisory role.

Information gleaned from the website of the ministry says, “The Ministry of Interior was created in 2015 following a merger between the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Police Affairs. It is a Federal Government organ which evolved from the Ministry of Internal Affairs which was created in 1957. It came as a result of the merger of various departments and Units of Government over the years. Some of its components like prisons were pulled out from the defunct Native Authorities of the Federation; other arms of it, like the Immigration Service, came from the old Nigeria Police Force while other units were previously in the office of the Secretary of State in the Colonial days.”

Furthermore, the Federal Government Gazette no. 63 Vol. 70 of December 6, 1983 assigned the following statutory roles to the ministry:  matters on control and strengthening of the entry and exit points across the national borders and preventing of undesirable elements from entering into Nigeria; registration of voluntary organisations and Marriage Registration, Civil Defence and Private Security guards; Granting of Nigerian Citizenship; Consular and Immigration Services as well as  Granting Business Permits and Expatriate Quotas. Others include, Co-ordination of National/Independence Day Celebration; Reformation and re-integration of  inmates; Management of National emergencies; Recruitment of officers and men of the Prisons Service, Immigration Service, Fire Service and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps; and Managing the retirement benefits of retirees of Paramilitary Services under its supervision.

This shows that Aregbesola has his work cut out for him. As a concerned Nigerian, I will like him to prioritise a number of things. One of such is effective supervision of the agencies under him. There is no gainsaying that Nigeria is facing enormous security challenges. Internal security of any nation is key to the attainment of its development agenda. Therefore, I charge the minister to do his best to support the agencies under his supervision for effective service delivery on their mandate. The Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps is playing complementary role to the Nigeria Police and the military. It is heartwarming that men of the NSCDC have been involved in curbing pipeline vandalism, provision of security at schools as well as being deployed as Agro Rangers to help in curbing herders/farmers’ clashes in the North. For optimal performance, the organisation, which is also responsible for registration of private security guards, must be well-resourced.

One of the key agencies under the Ministry of Interior is the Nigeria Immigration Service.  The NIS’ mandate includes the control of persons entering or leaving Nigeria; the issuance of travel documents, to bona fide Nigerians in and outside the country; the issuance of residence permits to foreigners as well as border surveillance and patrol. Allegations of corruption have been levelled against officials of this service. There is a lot of racketeering in terms of issuance of passports and other travel documents. There are also allegations of abuse of resident permits by foreign companies and agencies which is made possible due to alleged compromise of officers and men responsible for the issuance of the permits. Aregbesola should therefore do all he can to smash whatever syndicate exists in Nigeria’s Immigration Service and flush out the bad eggs.

In April 2014, former Comptroller-General of the NIS, Mr. David Parradang, disclosed that though the country has only 84 approved land border control posts, there are more than 1,400 illegal borders in the country. He made the disclosure while addressing the National Conference Committee on Immigration.  Since that time, what has been done to effectively man these illegal entry points? Any wonder smuggling continues to thrive despite several bans on importation of certain categories of goods? There is no doubt that leaving such large number of routes unmanned has a lot of security implications as it makes it easy to illegally bring small arms and light weapons into the country. Aregbesola as the Minister of Interior must prioritise how to ensure that these illegal routes are blocked or manned. Closed Circuit Television and drones can also help out in surveillance of all border posts in the country.

The Nigeria Prisons Service, recently renamed Nigeria Correctional Service, is another agency under the supervision of the ministry. The rechristening happened last month when President Muhammadu Buhari signed the Nigerian Correctional Service Bill 2019 into law. Two key components of the new Act are: “Section 12 (8) empowers the state controller of the service to reject more intakes of inmates where it is apparent that the correctional centre in question is filled to capacity”. Also, “that where an inmate sentenced to death has exhausted all legal procedures for appeal and a period of 10 years has elapsed without execution of the sentence, the Chief Judge may commute the sentence of death to life imprisonment”.

Aregebesola should see to it that the new Act is implemented to the letter. In addition, creative solutions should be found to the challenge of snail’s pace of Nigeria’s justice delivery system which has led to a bloated number of ‘Awaiting Trial’ inmates in the custody of the service. As the popular dictum says, “Justice delayed is justice denied”. The minister should also solve the perennial challenge of jail-break in Nigeria.

The fire service, both at the federal and state levels, plays a key role in disaster management. This service, in spite of its pivotal assignment has been largely neglected by successive administration. In December 2017, former Minister of Interior, Abdulrahman Dambazzau, in Abuja inaugurated 13 modern firefighting trucks and 11 water tankers for the Federal Fire Service to combat fires in the country. According to him, one bus for conveying firefighters and other operational equipment were included. He said as of 2015, there was only one serviceable fire truck in the FCT Command. In spite of that noble gesture three years ago, the Federal Fire Service still needs to be well-resourced for greater and better operational efficiency. It behooves Aregbesola as the new minister to ensure this happens.

While I enjoin the minister to improve the fortunes of the agencies under his ministry and improve the welfare of the staff across board, the workers too must shun corrupt practices, abuse of office and professional misconduct. They must realise that the security of this great nation is partly in their hands and therefore must strive to be of exemplary conduct, always.

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