We’ve invested hugely in human capacity building – NIS boss

 The Comptroller General, Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), Isah Jere, says the service has invested hugely in developing the capacity of its personnel to combat irregular migration.

Jere said this during the inauguration of NIS Borno State Command’s Personnel Training Resource Centre (PTRC).

This is contained in a statement by the Public Relations Officer of the service, Mr Tony Akuneme, on Tuesday.

Jere said the inauguration was part of the commitment of the service towards enhancing the capacity of its officers and men for better service delivery through training and retraining.

He said the event further affirmed the genuine desire of the NIS management to reposition the service towards attaining a truly world-class status to compete with its counterparts worldwide.

The NIS boss said developing the capacity of personnel was important to the service.

This, he said, was a way to achieve its mandate of ensuring that the vast borders were safe and secured.

According to him, “In this regard, the management of NIS places a very high premium on capacity building through training and retraining of its personnel.

“This is a requisite tool for combating the ever-evolving challenges of irregular migration and other trans-border crimes that affect the security and socio-economic wellbeing of the nation.

“Accordingly, in a bid to enhance inter-agency collaboration, a total of 21 officers comprising 14 NIS officers and seven NAPTIP staff were selected and trained as Training Focal Persons (TFPs).

“Consequently, about 2,600 NIS officers and 190 NAPTIP staff have benefitted from the capacity building offered at the PTRCs. The reason for this cannot be over-emphasised.

“These two organisations are the first respondents in handling the challenges of modern-day migration, migrant smuggling and trafficking in persons across the borders.”

Jere urged the officers and men of the Borno State Command to ensure that the facility was well maintained and put to good use.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the PTRC building is a result of collaboration between the NIS and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) with funding from the government of the Netherlands.

The inauguration of Maiduguri PTRC brings the total number of completed PTRCs to nine.