Gov seeks partnership with NIS to resettle returnees in Edo

The Edo government on Monday sought partnership with the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) in its bid to provide succour to returnees from Europe who are indigenes of the state.

Gov. Godwin Obaseki made the request when the Zonal Coordinator of NIS , Zone G, Mrs Chizoba Dibi, paid him a courtesy call at Government House in Benin on Monday

He, however, said the state lacked the statistics of the returnees to enable the government re-integrate them into the society.

“I am not comfortable with the way the issue of returnees is being handled.

“The state has no record or statistics of those that have come back; we don’t have the benefits of re-settling them ; we feel this should be corrected”, he said.

The governor urged the NIS to furnish his administration with the statistics of returnees who are from the state so that better arrangement for their welfare could be made.

“We are dealing with the root causes of migration and are creating opportunities for our youths to be gainfully employed.

“We have added the teaching of vocational and technical education in our schools to equip our youths with the needed skills so that they can be self reliant,’’ Obaseki said.

He also pleaded for the collaboration of the service in tackling the rising issue of security threats of some foreigners posing as herdsmen to wreak havoc in some communities across the state.

Earlier, Dibi, the Zonal coordinator of Zone ‘G’, comprising Edo, Bayelsa, Anambra, Delta and Enugu states, said the visit was to intimate the governor of recent developments in the service.

She said the service would soon embark on e-registration of foreigners in the country in order to create a demographic record for them.

Dibi said the zone , through its passport offices, had issued a total of 20, 896 e-passports to citizens in the country between January and February this year.

The zonal coordintor also said that the service was doing a lot in tackling human trafficking and other related immigration issues in the states within its jurisdiction.

She solicited for the state’s government support in the provision of logistics to strengthen its response to security challenges in the state.