The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has countered claims that it is probing the authenticity of the passport obtained by alleged minor, Nwamini David, who was allegedly trafficked to the United Kingdom by a former senate president, Ike Ekweremadu and his wife, Beatrice for organ harvest<\/p>\n
The service, in a statement by its public relations officer and assistant comptroller- general of immigration, Amos Okpu , argued that , due process was followed in the procurement of the said travel document.<\/p>\n
According to the statement, \u201cThe said documents were issued by competent offices and the necessary verifications were made to confirm their validity and correctness. Consequent upon this therefore, the said passport was issued to him having satisfied the basic requirements.<\/p>\n
The statement reads in part,\u201d Mr David approached the application portal of the Service, applied and paid for the enhanced ePassport at the Gwagwalada Passport Office, FCT Abuja on the 2nd November, 2021. All the necessary documents including National Identity Number (NIN) issued by NIMC, letter of introduction issued by Ebonyi State Government Liaison Office, situated on Mississippi Maitama District Abuja, Birth Certificate issued by the National Population Commission and other relevant documents to support the application of Mr. David were presented for processing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Okpu who argued that they had no reason whatsoever\u00a0 to initiate any\u00a0 probe,\u00a0\u00a0 wondered about the validity of the claims\u00a0 that due process was not observed in the issuance of the passport to Mr David Ukpo Nwamini.<\/p>\n
He added that , \u201cThe\u00a0\u00a0 Nigeria is one of the first four countries in the world to deploy modern technological tools to run the electronic Passport platform as far back as 2007. Ever since then, significant improvements have been recorded including migration to the enhanced ePassport regime recently, a technology that has added some additional security features and options of Passport categories to applicants.\u201d<\/p>\n
The statement reads in part, \u201cThe attention of the comptroller-general of Immigration,\u00a0 Isah Jere Idris,\u00a0 has been drawn to some reports alleging that the issuance of a Nigerian Standard Passport to one Mr. David Ukpo Nwamini who has been mentioned in an ongoing investigation by the UK authorities on human trafficking case did not follow due process.<\/p>\n
” Some aspects of the reports are suggesting that due diligence was not observed in the issuance of the said document to Mr. David. The comptroller- general therefore, wishes to use this medium to state categorically that all Passport applications especially fresh ones are usually subjected to stringent screening exercises before issuance. Mr. David\u2019s application was not an exception. This is done not only to ensure that our Passports are issued to eligible persons but that the process is transparent enough to sustain the system.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has countered claims that it is probing the authenticity of the passport obtained by alleged minor, Nwamini David, who was allegedly trafficked to the United…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":96400,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n