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NIS Holds Capacity Building Training for Newly Deployed Passport Control Officers
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The Minister of Interior Rauf Aregbesola has declared a Two-Day Capacity Building Workshop for newly posted Passport Control Officers (PCOs) at the Service Headquarters, Abuja.
The Workshop with the theme “Effective and Efficient Service Delivery: An Imperative for Maximizing the Gains of the Passport Reforms toward a Seamless Passport Issuance Process”, is aimed at familiarizing the newly deployed heads of Passport Offices across the country with the basic operational knowledge of the electronic Passport environment.
A statement by the Service’s Public Relations Officer quoted the Minister as urging participants to utilize the opportunity offered by the training to acquaint themselves with all aspects of the workings of the electronic Passport to enable them acquire the required competence for enhanced productivity in their Stations.
The Minister remarked that as the main drivers of the ongoing Passport reform efforts, PCOs should be well grounded in Passport operations to enable them to regularly demonstrate the needed technical and leadership skills for improved service delivery across all the Passport Issuing Centres. This he noted shall be exposed to them during the workshop and thus called for maximum concentration to the lectures to be delivered by the resource persons.
He assured that government shall continue to provide innovations that would evolve a seamless Passport application and processing system to not only restore and sustain the integrity of the process but also ensure that the national Passport is issued to only eligible citizens. He therefore called on the PCOs to regularly exercise due diligence in screening and vetting of source documents to ensuring that the national Passport which is the highest symbol of nationality does not get into the hands of non-citizens.
He commended the management of the Service for the efforts made so far on Passport operations which have resulted in the issuance of about Three Million Booklets since 2019 to date despite the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Minister while assuring that any Personnel caught to be involved in frustrating the ongoing reforms to deliver an efficient Passport system shall be severely sanctioned also promised that the operating conditions of many Passport locations shall improve very soon.
In his remarks, the acting Comptroller General Isah Jere Idris stated that the Service will continue to sustain and improve on its commitment to training and retraining activities for its personnel with a view to deepening their competences for acceptable service delivery. He maintained that the burden of carrying an untrained or poorly trained workforce is enormous particularly for a technology-driven agency such as NIS. He further stressed that there was no better time to organize training programmes for the PCOs than now considering the ongoing project of migrating the current electronic Passport structure to the enhanced electronic Passport regime which of course requires a huge deployment of ICT infrastructure.
The acting Comptroller General recalled that upon assumption of Office last year September, he embarked on the exercise of clearance of backlog of Passport applications in various Passport issuance Centres. The effort he said “has resulted in the clearance of all backlogs of applications in the South West geopolitical zone and parts of the North Central especially in the Centres that have migrated to the enhanced electronic Passport regime. Similar exercise was carried out in the South East recently leading to about 80% success rate while efforts are being made to attain a 100% production and issuance across the Centres.
During the two-day workshop slated for the 12th-13th April 2022, the participants shall receive lectures on the role of ICT in Passport administration and issuance, expositions on modern skills in leadership as well as the primacy of customer satisfaction in service delivery among others. Participants at the workshop include all the Forty-five (45) Passport Control Officers who were deployed across the States following a Staff Posting Order that was released last Month.
The FCT Council of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has declared an indefinite strike across the Federal Capital Territory, directing workers in the public and private sectors to shut down schools, hospitals, government offices and other establishments.
The strike began on Wednesday, October 7, following the expiration of a seven-day ultimatum issued to the FCT Administration (FCTA) over the promotion of teachers.
The labour council said the FCTA failed to satisfactorily address its demands, particularly its call for the removal of the requirement for vacancies before teachers can be promoted.
The dispute centres on the FCTA’s position that teachers can only advance when vacancies are available. The NLC said the policy has contributed to years of career stagnation among teachers and is not applicable to the teaching profession.
In resolutions signed by its Chairman, Comrade Knabayi Adalo, the council argued that FCT teachers are not core civil servants or pool staff and should therefore not be subjected to a vacancy-based promotion system designed for pool officers.
It said teachers recruited by the FCT Universal Basic Education Board, UBEB, and FCT Secondary Education Board, SEB, were employed specifically to teach and should be promoted “as and when due.”
The NLC is also demanding that teachers who became eligible for promotion in 2025 be allowed to sit for their promotion examination before or alongside the 2026 candidates.
Another demand is the withdrawal of redeployment and demotion letters issued to directors who benefited from the Harmonised Retirement Age for Teachers Act, 2022.
The council is further calling for the immediate reinstatement of the dissolved management teams of FCT SEB and FCT UBEB.
The decision to commence the strike was taken at the council’s State Executive Council, SEC, meeting held on October 6, at the NLC FCT Secretariat.
At the meeting, the labour body rejected the FCTA’s response to its ultimatum, describing it as “neither clear, positive, nor genuine.”
According to the SEC, the response did not address the vacancy requirement, which it described as the “root cause of career stagnation”, and was also silent on what the council called the “illegal redeployment of directors.”
“The response of the FCTA is ambiguous and totally unacceptable,” the SEC said.
The council added that it “will no longer tolerate the continued dehumanisation of FCT teachers through obnoxious policies alien to the teaching profession.”
The 20 prospective National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members and one other abducted along the Owerri-Onitsha Road in Imo State have regained their freedom.
The victims were rescued from the Amakohia-Ubi forest in Owerri West Local Government Area of the state following a coordinated operation involving security agencies.
They have since been taken to the Department of State Services (DSS) Hospital in Owerri, where they are receiving medical attention and undergoing necessary medical checks.
The Director-General of the National Youth Service Corps Brigadier General Olakunle Oluseye Nafiu visited the DSS Clinic in Owerri, where he addressed the rescued victims.
He was in company of the Imo State Commissioner of Police, Director DSS and Brigade Commander 34 artillery Imo State.
Details of the operation, including whether any arrests were made or ransom was paid, have not yet been made public.
However, in a statement issued by the Force Public Relations Officer, Ani Iniedu, the police said, “Efforts are ongoing to apprehend those responsible for the abduction, as the Police and other security agencies sustain coordinated operations towards bringing all culpable persons to justice.”
The victims were abducted on October 1 while travelling from Ibadan, Oyo State, to NYSC orientation camps in Abia and Akwa Ibom states.
The two buses conveying the prospective corps members came under attack near Umunoha in the Mbaitoli Local Government Area of Imo State.
Following the abduction, security agencies launched a coordinated search-and-rescue operation to locate the victims and their abductors.
The Imo State Police Command later said its operatives had located the kidnappers’ camp through drone surveillance but were unable to immediately enter the location because it was reportedly mined with improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
The police subsequently deployed additional operational assets, including bulldozers and armoured personnel carriers, as efforts intensified to reach the victims.
The development also triggered anxiety among the victims’ families after reports that the abductors were demanding ₦50 million for each victim.
Police had earlier confirmed that 10 victims were rescued following the attack, while efforts continued to locate the remaining abductees.
The latest development brings an end to the ordeal of the 20 corps members and the other abducted victim, who have now been reunited with safety and are receiving medical attention in Owerri.
The Regional Chairman of Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN), Barkin Ladi Local Government Area of Plateau State, Rev. Ezekiel Dachomo, has denied reports that he prayed for the re-election of President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima in the 2027 presidential election.
Dachomo, who is currently in Israel on what he described as his first International Christian Advocacy Tour, said his visit was aimed at drawing the attention of world leaders to the plight of Christians in Plateau.
The cleric made the clarification in a social media post on Monday night following reports that he had prayed for the success of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential ticket and expressed support for the Muslim-Muslim ticket.
Dachomo said his earlier post, in which he prayed for Nigeria, had been misconstrued as an endorsement of Tinubu and Shettima ahead of the 2027 election.
According to him, there was nowhere in the post where he prayed for the President and Vice-President to win the election.
“People are trying to frame me, saying I prayed for a Muslim-Muslim ticket. But I did not, and I will never pray for a Muslim-Muslim ticket because Nigeria belongs to both Muslims and Christians,” he said.
Dachomo said his prayers were for the well-being and success of Nigeria and its citizens, irrespective of their religious affiliations.
“I pray for both Muslims and Christians in Nigeria. I pray for Nigeria to succeed. If you truly want to come to God, come with a clean heart,” he added.
The cleric further stated, “I did not pray for President Tinubu and Vice President Shettima to win in 2027. My prayers have always been for Nigeria to succeed.”
Dachomo’s clarification came amid reactions to his ongoing advocacy tour in Israel, where he is seeking international attention to security challenges and what he described as the persecution of Christians in Plateau.
