BY VICTORIA OJEME
ABUJA—The Immigration Service has vowed to shut out foreigners from registering in preparation for this year’s general elections.

Public Relations Officer of the service, Joachim Olumba, who disclosed this to Vanguard, said the  Comptroller-General of the service had already ordered officers in charge of border units and control posts all over the country to maintain 24 hours surveillance and presence at all stations.

“Not only that we have also increased monitoring activities of all identified unapproved roads, with a view to ensuring that only foreigners who are entering the country with genuine motive will be allowed into the country,” he said.

The PRO stated further that the Service intended to curtail mass movement of persons across Nigerian border posts during the period of voters’ registration scheduled to begin on January 15.  Olumba said:  “We are not allowing mass movement and if there is going to be any, we must be certain of their motive, even when they are coming into Nigeria in single, they must be properly screened by immigration border officers.”

He said the Comptroller-General had directed the deployment of immigration officers to all the 774 local government areas to ensure that no identified foreigner illegally took part in the process during the exercise.

According to him,  the number of officers to be deployed to each local government area depends on the number of  foreigners in the area.
“So in some places, we can have like 10 foreigners, in some cases, you find five or three while in some places, you find more than ten, if such places are highly urbanised areas.

“In  Katsina and Maiduguri, there is tendency that such places will attract more of what we are talking about because of the border closeness,” he added.

On whether the nation’s borders would be closed on election day, the Immigration spokesman said such decision was the exclusive preserve of Federal authorities, saying “ it is the federal government that has the right to close border.

“However, all immigration border posts  have been put on alert to ensure that only people whose  mission in the country will not be detrimental are allowed in.”

To underscore the seriousness attached to the assignment, he said the Comptroller-General had warned of dire consequences for any immigration officer who defaulted in preventing foreigners from illegally participating in the electoral process.