Nigeria Immigration Service has generated N438.78bn as revenue from 2017 to date.

This came as the Internally Generated Revenue by the agency almost doubled from N38.53bn in 2017 to N74.69 (budgeted IGR) in 2022.

In 2017, 2018 and 2019, NIS raked in N38.5bn, N39bn and N61bn, respectively.

However, the service’s IGR suffered a 19 percent drop to N49.9bn in 2020 largely due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In 2021, the revenue rose by about 44 per cent amounting to N71.7bn. Its proposed revenue for the 2022 fiscal year is N74.6bn.

$230.63m (N103.01bn) offshore revenue was generated by the agency between 2017 and 2022.

A breakdown showed that $31.6m, $36.91m and $41.8m were generated in 2017, 2018 and 2019 respectively.

In 2020, 2021 and 2022, the service generated $20.07m, $40.33m and $39.90m respectively.

Meanwhile, the budgetary allocation for the immigration service rose by at least 20.23 per cent in the fiscal years from 2018 to 2022.

Speaking with our correspondent, the Global Spokesperson of the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union, Luka Biniyat, said the rising revenue from passport issuance might be not be unconnected with the rising rate of relocation of Nigerians to other parts of the world in search of greener pastures. This increasing quest of Nigerians to leave the country is called ‘Japa’ in street parlance.

He cited an earlier report by this newspaper which revealed that the number of passports issued by the NIS rose from 767,164 to 1,059,607 between 2020 and 2021. That is about 2,081 and 2,853 passports issued every 24 hours in 2020 and 2021 respectively.

“This is connected with the fact that Nigerians are in a hell of a hurry to rush out of this country. Let’s say that Kaduna State is issued with 200 passports, and then you have about 5,000 persons applying for 200 passports.

As of the time of filing this report, spokesperson for the NIS, was not reachable as calls made to his mobile line went unanswered.

However, in its seven-year scorecard for the Buhari regime, the Presidency had argued the FG was working to reposition the NIS to satisfy global standards and adhere to global best practices.

Citing border security efforts, the report issued by the President’s spokesman, Femi Adesina, said “The Nigerian Immigration Service is deploying a Migration Information and Data Analysis System at five international airports. MIDAS is a global real-time border management system developed by International Organization for Migration and is linked to INTERPOL & other watch-lists.

“The implementation of MIDAS at the International Airport in Abuja was described by the IOM as “the largest deployment of MIDAS at any airport globally, to date.”

Punch