From Isaac Anumihe, Abuja
The Minister of Interior, Dr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, has announced plans to establish a harmonised centre to combat immigration document fraud.
Speaking in Abuja during a visit from the UK Minister of State for Home Affairs, David Hanson, Tunji-Ojo highlighted the need for a centralised system to verify documents in real time.
“One of the key issues we also realised with border control is what we call immigration and document fraud. It is very key and we realised that one of the reasons why this is quite on the rise is because there is no centralised pool of authentication and verification of documents in real time. So, today, if people submit 20 documents, you might need to go to 20 issuing agencies to verify 20 documents belonging to one person. So, if you have 1,000 people per day, you might need to look for 100,000 verification and authentication systems. That breeds inefficiency,” he said.
Tunji-Ojo added that the centre would authenticate documents like passports, birth certificates, and bank statements, enhancing Nigeria’s image and investor confidence. “As a government, we are trying to be more proactive than reactive, and we don’t want to judge our performance in terms of fraud by virtue of recoveries or convictions, but rather by the number of crimes or frauds that we prevented from happening,” he stated.
Hanson emphasised the shared agenda between Nigeria and the UK to improve criminal justice outcomes.
“There is a great common agenda that we can share and I am particularly keen to look at how we are working together closely. My visit this week will also look at the new joint centre that you are undertaking,” he said.
He noted ongoing UK-Nigeria collaboration on migration policies, visa systems, and trade, following Tunji-Ojo’s recent meeting with UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.
The UK delegation included officials from the Home Office, National Crime Agency, and UK High Commission in Nigeria.