Minister confirms criminals on Interpol Red List, arrested in Nigeria
By Tom Okpe
Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo has revealed that criminals on ‘Red List’ of the International Police, popularly known as, INTERPOL, were arrestedin Nigeria airports.
Tuni-Ojo also informed that criminals declared wanted by various countries across Europe were arrested within two days at the point of entering the country.
He said the arrest was made possible due to heavy investment in surveillance and intelligence-gathering equipments, stationed at the nation’s border points.
He stated this on Tuesday at a regional workshop on Maritime Border Security titled: ‘Regional Maritime Border Security in the Context of Counter Terrorism in the Gulf of Guinea,’ in Lagos State.
The Minister further stated that the criminals originated from Italy, the Republic of Ireland and a couple of other countries.
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He said: “I can tell you that to a large extent, we have built a robust database, and we are reaping the fruits of that. Now, it will interest you that a couple of weeks ago, within two days, a lot of people on the Interpol and red list were arrested at our airports.
“One came from Italy, one came from Ireland, the other’s, I think, came from a couple of countries. These people would have come into Nigeria 18 years ago, but now we know that in terms of our air terminals, they are in sync because, it is integrated into the central system.”
The minister also disclosed that Nigeria, for the first time, has Advanced Passenger Informations, used to profile passengers coming into the country, asserting that the API was used to query the passengers’ records, antecedents and travel history.
“We never had that capacity before President Bola Ahmed Tinubu came on board, but today, I tell you, NIS has that, so if you are coming into Nigeria today, before you come, we know everything about you.
“Now, we can tell you that Nigeria now has an API solution. We never had that before now. Before now, we were one of the few countries without an API solution, without the opportunity for our immigration officers to pre-profile people coming into Nigeria, not being able to query their background, query their record system, their antecedents and travel history.
“We queried you, we know where you are coming from, and we can tell from their aspect, we are now fulfilling our international obligations to our international colleagues by being able to uphold the tenets of the United Nations, UN, resolution of the API solution that we have at the moment,” he stated.
In his earlier speech, Comptroller General of the Nigeria Immigration Service, Kemi Nandap, said the Service plays a pivotal role in maritime border security by ensuring that foreign terrorist fighters and other criminal elements do not exploit the Nation’s territorial integrity.
According to the Immigration Chief, maritime insecurity from illegal oil bunkering, fishing, piracy, armed robbery, and oil-related crimes threatens vessel and crew safety.
