12th May, 1988, remains one of the most remarkable dates in my life. It was on that date that I commenced my career journey in life; my journey precisely to the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) which I joined as an Assistant Superintendent. The actual journey to this day had taken approximately four and a half months, when I attended the interview at the office of the then Customs, Immigration and Prisons Board (CIPB) in the Gwagwalada area of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Before then, I had completed my NYSC assignment in September, 1987. I was deployed to the defunct Bendel State for the compulsory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) engagement. Prior to the NYSC programme, I had successfully bagged a first degree, graduating in Second Class Upper Division in Sociology from the University of Calabar, Calabar, Cross River State, in 1986.
At the onset of my career, I attended the 20th Basic Course at the Immigration Training School, Kano (ITSK), between May and August, 1988. The training raised my hopes very high to the extent that I thought one had joined one of the best organisations that one could ever contemplate. I would soon realise that a wide gap existed between the theoretical knowledge we were exposed to and the practical realities of the job that we gleefully found ourselves preparing to fully explore.
On the graduation day, I captured extensive attention winning the most prizes in academic performance. I came top in three core Immigration courses and took the best prize in Public Relations, one of the courses essential to Immigration Service. I graduated with distinction, emerging as the third best, amongst over two hundred graduating students, consisting largely of fresh university graduates. Consequently, I was decorated with a badge for my sterling performance by the then Director of Immigration, Muhammed Damulak. My prize haul drew a resounding round of applause from the bulk of my graduating colleagues and the numerous guests in attendance. I was so delighted with this rare feat of mine and thought that it would be a defining moment in my career. Put differently, I calculated that this glittering performance would add considerable value to my new life as an Immigration Officer. Unfortunately, I would find out that the Service would not pay any significant attention to such. One simply moved into the field believing that the sky would be there for one to reach in one’s career.
Much later in the course of my career, I attended another significant training programme for Senior Officers of the management cadre. The 10th Command Course which I participated in several years down the line, at the Immigration Command and Staff College (ICSC), Sokoto, was not totally different from my Basic Course in terms of academic achievement. I had lived up to expectations, graduating once again with distinction. Throughout my service years, there were several other relevant short courses, seminars, workshops and training programmes that I attended in diverse fields of management, civil-military relations, border control, computer operations, elocution and so on.
During the almost 35 years of my career as an Immigration officer, I served in different capacities across many Commands, formations and the Service Headquarters, including Cross River State Command; the defunct Gongola State Command; Ogun State Command; Imo State Command; Oil & Gas Free Zone Command, Onne; and Zone E, Headquarters, Owerri. Others are Lagos State Command; Service Headquarters, Abuja, where I had three different stretches of tours of duty; Rivers State Command; Abia State Command; and Enugu State Command, from where I drew the curtain on my career in November, 2022.
Through a dint of hard work, total dedication to duty and commitment to excellence, I occupied several sensitive offices and positions in the course of my career. In the early years, I separately served as Special Assistant to Comptrollers Bayo Akolade and UK Onwuka in Imo State Command. I had simultaneously combined this position with my appointment as Command Public Relations Officer. Later, I got appointed to the position of Zone E Public Relations Officer and ultimately as Service Public Relations Officer both under Mrs RC Uzoma as ACG/Zonal Coordinator and Comptroller General of Immigration Service respectively. Functioning at the three different levels in Nigeria Immigration Service as Service PRO, Zonal PRO and Command PRO was, by every standard, record-setting.
Besides holding sway in the Public Relations Unit at various levels, I also headed many other sensitive Units and Sections in a number of Commands and the Service Headquarters. I was the State Aliens Officer as well as Officer in-charge of ECOWAS and African Affairs in Rivers State Command. I served in the Airport/Air Border Patrol Division in the Service Headquarters before my redeployment as Passport Control Officer, Abia State Command. I was the Acting Comptroller of Immigration, Abia State Command for six months. Later, I got appointed as Special Assistant to the Comptroller General of Immigration and the Service Reform Champion under Muhammad Babandede, who was to, again, approve my appointment as the pioneer Comptroller of Immigration Service in-charge of e-Visa at the Service Headquarters. In that capacity, the operationalization of the Nigeria Visa Policy (NVP) 2020 directly commenced under my watch.
Perhaps, the highest point in my career was when I was redeployed to Enugu State Command as the Comptroller. Here, I left the greatest legacies within the short span of my stay before bowing out of the Service. I had been deployed to Enugu State Command by the Comptroller General of Immigration Service, Muhammad Babandede, with a clear directive to persuade the government and people of the state to come to the aid of the Service in renovating the newly built Command Office complex located in the Emene area of the state capital, which was terribly vandalised by hoodlums during the ill-fated EndSARS protests. The building had been completed and was about being commissioned by the then Honorable Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola before it was attacked and substantially destroyed by EndSARS protesters in October 2020. The Comptroller General was emphatic in stating that the Service had no money to spend in rehabilitating a building that was completed and fully paid for and that since the destruction was carried out by the people in the state, the burden of reconstruction would not be borne by the NIS.
Consequently, I reported to Enugu State Command on 31st January, 2021, and was wholly determined to achieve the task of getting the destroyed Office complex renovated and occupied for full Immigration operations and services. Seeing that the then Governor of Enugu State, Rt. Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi was not keen in helping the Service to renovate the damaged buildings, I had to look elsewhere for possible assistance. I was not perturbed that my retirement was fast approaching. I devoted myself completely to the task of turning around the ugly story of the NIS Command complex in Enugu.
Eventually, barely two months after I reported for duty in the state, I succeeded in securing multiple sponsors for the renovation of the badly vandalised new Command Office complex and furnishing of same. By July, less than six months after I assumed office in Enugu State Command, a comprehensively renovated and substantially well furnished office complex was ready once again for occupation and commissioning. By the end of July, I got the Command relocated from the Federal Secretariat complex where it operated for more than thirty years to its permanent site in Emene, Enugu. On 12th August, 2021, the Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, accompanied by the then Comptroller General of Immigration, Muhammad Babandede visited to commission the new Command Office complex. Encomiums were showered on our main benefactor, Engr. Stanley Anih who sponsored the elaborate renovation work on all the damaged buildings as well as furnished the Conference Room and General Waiting Room. Engr. Onuorah Nnabugwu and Chief Stanley Ezeh who funded the furnishing of the Passport VIP Waiting Room and the Comptroller’s Office respectively, both received accolades from the Honorable Minister and the Comptroller General of Immigration. I also got eulogised by both the Minister and Comptroller General for making all of this possible. In all, the sponsorship package by these three illustrious Nigerians and my humble self would have saved Nigeria Immigration Service approximately fifty million Naira (N50m) through contract awards.
There were a number of projects that I carried out in Enugu State Command headquarters to enhance the aesthetics and to protect the environment. I launched a massive tree planting campaign in the premises, as well as supported the take-off of other capital projects, such as the Immigration Officers Wives Association’s Multi-Purpose Hall and Creche and the Christian Chapel edifice.
This was not the first time that I had initiated such projects in my career years in NIS. As the Public Relations Officer of Zone E, I organised a Workshop for Company Executives and Public Relations Officers on Immigration procedures, practices and policies to facilitate their seamless interface with the NIS within the Zone and beyond, as well as published a colourful newsmagazine which was publicly presented and launched at the Workshop opening ceremony. All the proceeds from the Workshop and newsmagazine launch were deployed to the construction of an eight-room transit camp (all en suite), in the Aladinma Extension area of Owerri, to provide free temporary accommodation for newly posted Officers to the Zonal Office. I had utilised all my professional skills and time to achieve all this at no cost whatsoever to the Service. Some other Officers would have used the decoy of consultants to ensure that they had personal benefits from these projects. In none of these projects did I set any agenda for personal gratification.
Throughout the course of my career, I strove to give out my best. This got me involved in nearly every committee assignment in whichever Command or formation that I found myself. I also served in a number of ad hoc Committees within and outside the Service. I was on two occasions a member of the Committee for Re-organization of the Directorate Structure of the Nigeria Immigration Service; member of the Committee on New Annual Performance Assessment Format for Officers and Men of Nigeria Immigration Service; member, Media and Publicity Sub-committee of Nigeria @ 50 Planning & Organizing Committee and member, National Pandemic Response Team of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, amongst others.
As a prolific writer and author, I had utilised my skills to bequeath a number of publications to the NIS at different levels. I was the publisher and editor-in-chief of the Coal City Migrant Newsmagazine, a publication of Nigeria Immigration Service, Enugu State Command; editor-in-chief, The Service Image Newsmagazine, a publication of the Immigration Command and Staff College, Sokoto; editor-in-chief, The New Migrant Newsmagazine, a publication of Nigeria Immigration Service Headquarters, Abuja; editor-in-chief, Immigration Update Newsmagazine, a publication of Nigeria Immigration Service, Zone E, Owerri and editor, OGSIMMI NEWS, a publication of Ogun State Immigration Command.
These publications are among the most colourful, highly educative and entertaining in-house magazines ever published in the history of the Service.
The vast exposure and experience acquired in the course of my career have also armed me considerably, and aided my visibility and active participation in playing leadership roles in community and religious affairs, as well as in some professional and sports organisations. My devotion and remarkable contributions to a number of these bodies and organisations have attracted numerous awards, honours and recognitions, which I cannot itemize here in order to curtail the length of this presentation.
In more ways, I have benefited significantly from my service to fatherland in Nigeria Immigration Service. It has enabled me to travel extensively across all the states in Nigeria, and provided me the opportunity to visit such countries as the United Kingdom, China, Pakistan, Germany, United Arab Emirates, Italy, Jordan, Israel, Qatar, Republic of Benin, Cameroon, Niger Republic, Egypt and Tunisia.
Furthermore, and very significantly, my service to the nation in NIS offered me the rare privilege of meeting so many people and cultivating friends from all parts of the country. Interestingly, NIS is populated by many bright, brilliant and highly knowledgeable people. It’s one of the uniform agencies in Nigeria with the most fertile brains and minds.
Unfortunately, the creme de la creme of these fine Officers have not been able to harness their great potentials to totally transform NIS. Ethnic, religious and primordial sentiments are rife as in most government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs). Favouritism, mediocrity and nepotism occupy profound places in many aspects of the decisions and activities of those saddled with the leadership of the Service. More often than not, these retrogressive considerations come to play in posting, promotion and other forms of patronage. In many instances, Officers from certain backgrounds, no matter how exceptional, will never be considered for certain offices and privileges. In some cases, you find Officers with no record of any tangible or meaningful achievement being awarded special promotion while dynamic and exceptional ones are left stagnant in rank.
At a time I could qualify in every respect for recognition and reward for my outstanding attainments in Enugu State Command, all I got from the same Minister I hosted on two occasions in six months to commission projects achieved largely through my commitment and exceptional performance, was denial of due and well-deserved promotion. I and a few colleagues were qualified for promotion to the rank of Assistant Comptroller General. We were invited to the promotion interview. There were vacancies littering the Service in that category. Surprisingly, we were told that we were retiring and would not be promoted in the same Service where Officers who had retired were invited to promotion interviews provided they had spent the minimum required number of years on the rank prior to their retirement. Ironically, after we were so unjustly and unfairly treated, the group of Officers who attended the next promotion exercise after us and were due for retirement were all promoted. What kind of Service is this that dispenses discriminatory policies and practices as it wishes? Can such a Service really inspire confidence, dedication and utmost sacrifice in Officers? This makes one recall the horrible years of stagnation in promotion , when Officers spent upwards of eight years on a rank they would ordinarily have spent three years. Very sad.
Perhaps, another terrible anomaly in the Service where I spent all my active years is the common practice of working tirelessly and devotedly and reaching a great height without having the opportunity to assist anyone secure employment in the Service. This is quite awful and highly regrettable. Many Officers have served from the ranks to top positions of Comptroller and Assistant Comptroller General without as much as assisting their biological children gain employment into the Service. You retire to your hometown to face people who never knew how incapacitated you were to help anyone into the Service you served and retired from. The recruitment policy of the Service is shrouded in secrecy. At best, there are established policies but the implementation process lacks transparency and openness. These sorts of practice must stop. It’s disheartening that one will spend over three decades in a Service and he will be incapable of helping anyone to get recruited into the Service.
Sadly, some politicians get into the National Assembly and the authorities in the Service and the Board will accord them consideration during recruitment exercises. This is absurd. We must stop seeing these politicians as demigods, even as we need their partnerships, sometimes, to succeed. It’s wrong that a Comptroller of Immigration or an Assistant Comptroller General of Immigration cannot obtain certain privileges in the Service where he works, but one politician gets considered for such privileges and patronages.
I really hope that we’ll eventually get to the point where the Nigeria Immigration Service of our dreams will be in place, where Officers’ welfare are accorded preeminence and priority. A situation where we retired leaving behind a long list of unpaid allowances and entitlements some of which had been outstanding for decades leaves much to be desired. With numerous challenges bordering on lack of operational equipment, logistics, befitting office and residential accommodation, etcetera, this NIS falls below the very high expectations many of us had at the point of recruitment. There’s need to think out of the box to take the Service to desired heights.
Joachim OLUMBA, a retired Comptroller of Immigration Service, wrote from Owerri, Imo State.
