SAN FRANCISCO, September 08, (THEWILL) – In an unprecedented first for the African continent, Nigeria has made a breakthrough by successfully completing the automation and integration of Stolen/Lost Travel Document (SLTD) linked to the INTERPOL Database.
In the statement making this known, the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) noted that this integration and automation system is for monitoring of SLTDs with the INTERPOL Global System (IPSG) in Lyon, France. The tool was completely integrated on Monday, 7th of September, 2020.
By successfully uploading 150,000 SLTD records into the database, Nigeria became the first ranking country in Africa and the 54th in the world to accomplish this feat. It made Nigeria the leading and only African country at the moment to have fully automated its SLTDs database and integrated it with that of INTERPOL.
The public statement acknowledged the firm support of the INTERPOL Global System (IPSG), the United States National Central Bureau (USNCB), Washington, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the National Central Bureau (NCB) of the Nigeria Police Force, Abuja for the varied roles each body played in making this a successful process. The success was attributable to the immense contribution of these partners working together with the NIS.
While appreciating the support of the bodies above, the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Immigration Service, Muhammad Babandede, MFR, expressed his pleasure at the accomplishment and enthused about how this achievement will enhance the agency’s fight against identity theft and the employment of stolen and lost travel documents by crooks seeking to mask their identities when crossing national borders and whilst engaging in criminal activities across the globe.
With this tool, nipping the illicit activities in the bud is now possible and he therefore counselled Nigerians to desist from the use of fake, altered, invalidated, withdrawn, stolen and lost travel documents for untoward purposes, especially now that the tool has enabled such documents to be automatically available round-the-clock at the press of a button to the 194-member countries that constitute the INTERPOL.
There are recent examples of Nigerians that have been intercepted and apprehended by eagle-eyed security personnel in some airports and entry-points around the world for the crime of trying to gain entrance into their country’s borders while in possession of passports that had earlier been reported stolen and or lost. These criminals might have considered themselves smarter than the system but that was not the case in the end.
Therefore, the Comptroller General issued a very clear warning to anyone intending to play this smart game that the gig was up. He advised holders of Nigerian passports not to use such re-issued passports, after reporting them stolen or lost, anywhere in the world, because with the automation of the process and the uploading of the records to the INTERPOL database, any such attempts will lead to immediate arrest and prosecution according to the law.
