Capt. Emmanuel Iheanacho is the Minister of Interior that supervises the internal security of the nation. In this interview with Johnchuks Onuanyim and some Interior Correspondents, he tells what the Ministry is doing to improve the internal security of the nation, and the challenges, as well as efforts being made by the federal government to correct some lapses. Excerpts.


Can you explain the process that led to the emergence of the new Comptroller General of Immigration, Madam Rose Uzoma, as there is allegation that she is not the most senior person in the organisation.


The question with regards to the elevation of Mrs. Rose Uzoma to the position of Comptroller General of Immigration was not unexpected because petitions always trail the appointment of heads of organisations. There is nothing extraordinary about what we had done. People are elevated to superior positions based on their qualifications, and experiences. Mrs. Rose Uzoma was one of the two Deputy Comptrollers General (DCGs) and the highest position is Comptroller General; and there were two DCGs, and behind them are the Assistant Comptrollers General. So, in term of ranking, she was the number two and had always been because every time the former Comptroller General, Mr. Chukwurah Udeh went on holiday, he handed over to her.


Let me also explain to you that quite a number of them, including, the former CG were course mates and came in at the same time. The problem we have is that if four people came in at the same time and they were course mates, you cannot have all those four rising equally at the same time, so there was no controversy as to whether she was next on rank. It was done on merit.


On awaiting trials, we don’t know if you had liaised with the Ministry of Justice to make sure the prisons are decongested?

I have been trying to deal with that a long time, because the issue of prison congestion and number of awaiting trial inmates that constitute a large proportion of people, who are in the prison is a big problem. But one thing you must not lose sight of is the fact that it’s the problem that belongs to the Ministry of Interior. The only way that concerns the Ministry of Justice, is that it is the provisions of the criminal justice that bring people and put them in jail. If we had that element of that legislation that would have changed all these that would have been okay. But like I said, it is our problem. The issue with the prison congestion has to do with the inadequacy of infrastructure that we have in accommodating the number of prisoners that we have there. The other problem is the standards that we have in the prisons. Are they really supplied with the necessary facility to make life easy for those who are there? I have brought this to the attention of the Senators and they have promised that they are going to do their best to fast-track the change in the criminal legislation so that we can establish this CAP in terms of the time someone can be held awaiting trial. These are the things that we are doing. The Justice Ministry is doing its best and working on its own account and trying to see how it can help. On our side, I think we need to find the resources to build more jails. We need to find the resources to supply all the facilities within the jails that will make life more bearable for those who are incarcerated there. Also, we need to find the resources to provide training, so that when these people eventually make a transition from their incarceration, back into the society, they will not become vegetables; rather they will be useful to the society.

The Fire Service does not have a Board, what is the Ministry doing about this? Also, I will like to know how far about the national fire service academy and the ceding issue of the Federal Fire Service.


I am not sure that is the case because we have the Boards that take care of all the parastatals under my ministry. But if it’s with the exception of the Federal Fire Service Board, that is an issue we are going to look at and hopefully within the next few weeks. If you come back to ask questions on this, we will have an answer for you but certainly we have CDIPB which actually takes care of all related Board matters, which we have under the Ministry of Interior with the exception of the federal fire service as you have pointed out. We will work at it and we are hoping that we will be in a position to make recommendations to the federal government with regards to when this Board will be constituted.


Ceding of the federal fire service and what has happened to National Fire Service Academy, which is at Chida?

It is still under construction and we will proceed on the basis of result that we have. We have a plan to develop that academy to an acceptable standard and the problem we have is lack of resources to finish it on time, so we are doing it gradually. We are working at it all the time. Also, there is the issue of ceding of fire service. If you look at it, we only have federal fire service in only two states in the federation; that is in Abuja and Lagos. Subsequently, what is intended is for the federal fire service to metamorphose into regulatory agency; rather than a proper operational service as perceived. But since I have been here, I have been thinking about the federal fire service. No one can say that the provision of federal fire service is something we can take for granted because we really need to secure properties that you have accumulated over a lifetime. When you have fire incidences, it ruin people’s lives. Apart from the fact that people lose their lives, it is also tragic when people lose the properties they had worked for all their lives. The federal fire service is a service indeed, and I will want to have a situation where we actually develop greater capability, rather than allowing the Service to continue to shrink. I know that the plans before I came into the Ministry of Interior was that the federal fire service will be considered municipal affairs, where the FG will shed that responsibility to the state and local government to provide federal fire service. The federal fire service will metamorphose into a regulatory agency with defined standards, with regards to how many stations are to be built in an area, the criteria to be used in citing those stations; what is the physical specification to citing those stations and more. These are the ideas, but I will like to say to you that I have been thinking since I came to this ministry; for instance, the Nigerian Civil Defence Corps, is a young organisation and it’s spreading all over the federation, and we have the federal fire service, which seems to be shrinking. What could actually happen here is that we are thinking of merging the two agencies. But we will first look at the feasibility and agree that its workable. This will happen as a result that one is shrinking and the other is expanding. If one is expanding and has a reach in all the states of the federation and in most of the local governments of the federation, why don’t we merge them because there is comparison in what they do?


The fire service is to fight unwanted fire and not only that, in any emergence for instance; if a building collapses, you know people normally call federal fire service to come and assist and this is similar to what the Civil Defence does. So, what it takes is for us to bring together the intellectual capacity, to really articulate the possibility that these two services could be merged and you will have greater value for your money in terms of investment that goes in to sustaining some of these organisations. So, this is something that I have been thinking about and I am thinking of setting up a committee to look at the possibility that the federal fire service can be active rather than shrinking into oblivion and could actually merge with the Civil Defence Corp, so that we can build prototype stations that are not fire service stations per say, but become emergency station, for fire incidence, collapsed building, communal violence or medical emergency.


How far with the much talked about arms unit of the Civil Defence Corps?

Well, we have indeed got all the necessary authorisation for the Civil Defence Corps to metamorphose into an armed organisation, but it is not all that easy. If you have the right to carry arms, so what do you do, you will go and buy guns and you will go and buy ammunition and start walking around with them? No! The first thing is to train people in the culture of arm usage. That is one thing that has to be done. We have to establish infrastructure and facility for storing and maintaining arms and ammunitions, because if you don’t have the training, and you put your gun on the table; you wanted to eat groundnut and somebody walks away with it, then you have a lot of problems to curtail with. So, we have to build an armoury. I know that the management of the Civil Defence at this point in time is dealing with these preliminary issues pending when they are ready.


Every year, issue of conferment of citizenship status to non-Nigerians keeps coming up. Have you taken a census to know how those conferment had impacted into our economy
Yes! it’s true that some governors approached me on this issue and the proposal they presented to me is to consider relocating the prisons from the city centre areas to the outskirts of the city. The governor of Anambra State is one of such persons that spoke to me. There is one programme in Lagos State, in regards to this. Lagos Government proposal is making progress, I rather suspect that we will be talking about it in a meeting tomorrow and the idea is to have a land swap arrangement whereby we give up the land where the prison in a particular location in Lagos is built.

We are given a land elsewhere and the government will build us a prison of a bigger capacity than the one we have just abandoned. These plans are on going. There are states in the North where we have received invitation to act in that manner as well. Also, Imo State government has invited us to come and relocate the Owerri prison from where it is and the Anambra government has done the same thing. It’s just a question of time. It’s suffice to say that we have not been idle since we have been here. We have been busy doing so many things and I really wish we have enough time to deal with these issues. But I know the way to go because most of these prisons were built during post-colonial time. Most of these prisons now occupy very sensitive locations. It would be much better where we can have arrangement, where you could take those prisons out of those areas into the rural areas and get benefits and value for it through the sale of that prime land which will yield equity; which can now be invested in building a much better facility for holding criminals.


On the internal security of the nation, yes the Civil Defence is actually involved in the provision of internal security and it does this, actually by virtue of information that it gets. I receive bulletin on regular basis from the Civil Defence in regards to what is happening in different parts of the country at all times and in fact relating to the issue of kidnappings in Abia State. For instance, they have been very, very active in talking to the kidnappers as a whole, just like the similar things that we did in Niger Delta. Could we grant you amnesty and you guys will walk away from the bad things that you are doing? But beyond the issue of trying to manage the internal security situation, we have realised that one of the things that we need to take our investment into the facilities that will match some of these criminals’ weapons and we are talking about being able to invest in electronic devices! Devices which would help us in pin-pointing the location of people when they decide to seize innocent people. We are talking about having facilities, rapid response and special weapon and tactic facilities that will help us to actually confront some of these kidnappers and indeed send message to them that we are not going to continue tolerating their activities because it is giving our country a bad name.


The third thing that you talked about is the issue of citizenship and you said that year after year, we keep granting citizenship to people. But I do know that year after year, we have not been granting citizenship to so many people. Since I have been here, we have only done one citizenship interview. I have been here and I know the number. It is not that we open our doors and we just issue our passports to them. No! There are definite criteria that are set and one of them is how long you have been here? What is your status here? Are you married to a Nigerian? Have you been here for 15 years? Do you have a job? Are you able to sustain yourself? Are you contributing positively to the development of our economy? When most of these questions are answered in the affirmative, then we will then consider it, look at all the documentation and if you meet the criteria, then we will recommend you to the Federal Executive Council for consideration as a citizen of Nigeria.
Nigerians should be reassured that we are not acting in an irresponsive manner. We really go through a very rigorous selective process, and if you meet the conditions, then we will grant you that status.


Let’s look at our borders that are said to be porous.

I will like to say that before I became the Minister, I undertook a journey several times and I went through Maiduguri; I went through Cameroon and Chad and I came back. And one thing that struck me was when we first made exit from Nigeria into Cameroon; we came to a village and the car stopped and we came out and I said where is the border, they said that is the border there. It was a room, that is the Nigerian Immigration spot and I said where are the Cameroonians, they said those people selling oranges over there are the Cameroonians and I said where are the Nigerians, they said the people walking across the road. So, there isn’t a clear defined border like you would see one great big wall or a fence. On one hand, West Africa is talking about the need to integrate all our systems so that we have one type of passport, one currency and we become one people and on the other hand, we are asking question as to why we are not building walls. We have to make up our minds on what we want. On the issue of the porous border, it is just the way people live because you cannot really demarcate it. So, the people are there. On the Nigerian side, we are doing our best to use e-technology to identify whom a Nigerian is and that is the way I think it should go.


How ‘e’ is the e-passport

I will like to say as ‘e’ as you can get it. A long time ago, it used to be the case that if you wanted to buy a Nigerian passport, you will go down to the gate of the passport office and there are touts who will meet you and they will make sure that you did not get in. That is no longer possible because we enroll people electronically and there is no way we can enroll people through a third party who is standing there. If you lost your passport and you need another one, we will just take your finger print. It will tell us exactly who you are, irrespective of what has brought you there and what story you have come to tell.


It is being alleged that light weapons come through the sea, what are you doing about this?

I know the Attorney General has a committee that actually visits the prisons from time to time. If you listened to what I said about the options that we have available to us for reforming the prison services, reform of the criminal justices is one of them, but it is not everything. I also emphasised the prison decongestion and the problem that we have within the prisons is that of funding in managing the prisons. So, it is a good idea and we are cooperating with them. But I would prefer you talked about Prof. Alemika report on prisons reform. He has a committee and if you do not know about his work, go to the University of Jos and find out about him. He will give you a copy of his report and they represent a full gamut of interest in regards to prison reforms. He put in a very detailed report in terms of what we need to do to reform the prison system and that report was presented to government and they were in the process of developing a white paper from it, before there was a change in the system and the whole thing disappeared in the system. Now we have found the white paper, resuscitated it, and we will make sure that all the recommendations that were contained in his report and his committee report are indeed dealt with.

On the issue of security in the maritime areas, I do not see any particular insecurity in the maritime system. If those arms are coming in through big ships, the ship will have to come in through the port and discharge and one has the responsibility to look into those containers, and if you go to Apapa port for instance, you will see that they have scanners, that is a situation where they have to take the containers through an x-ray machine to view all the things that are being carried in the container. When people talk about insecurity, sometimes I wonder if they are talking about imaginary things or something they know that is happening. Well, if anybody knows for a fact that there are problems at the seaports and if we talked on them, we will deal with them. But to my mind, we have enough structures on ground to take care of all these contingencies that we have talked about.





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for the like of him and his POLITICAL LOOTERS