The Nigeria Immigration Service has generated N438.78 billion in income from 2017 to date, according to data from The PUNCH.
This occurred at a time when the agency’s total Internally Generated Revenue nearly doubled from N38.53bn in 2017 to N74.69 (budgeted IGR) in 2022.
The NIS made N38.5 billion, N39 billion, and N61 billion in 2017, 2018, and 2019, respectively.
However, the Covid-19 epidemic was a major factor in the service’s IGR declining 19% to N49.9 billion in 2020.
Revenue increased by roughly 44% in 2021, totaling N71.7 billion. It has N74.6 billion in anticipated revenue for the fiscal year 2022.
The agency generated $230.63 million (N103.01 billion) in offshore revenue between 2017 and 2022.
According to a breakdown, $31.6 million, $36.91 million, and $41.8 million were made in 2017, 2018 and 2019, respectively.
The service brought in $20.07m, N40.33m, and $39.90m in 2020, 2021, and 2022, respectively.
In the fiscal years from 2018 to 2023, the budgetary allocation for the immigration service increased by at least 2023 percent.
The Global Spokesperson of the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union, Luka Biniyat, indicated that the increased revenue from passport issuance may not be unrelated to the rising rate of Nigerians moving abroad in quest of greener pastures.
He highlighted an earlier PUNCH article that showed that the NIS issued more passports between 2020 and 2021, going from 767,164 to 1,059,607 total. In 2020 and 2021, respectively, that works out to 2,081 and 2,853 passports being issued per 24 hours.
“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.
The NIS spokesperson could not be reached at the time this report was filed since calls to his mobile number went unanswered.
The Presidency had countered that the FG was striving to reposition the NIS to comply with international standards and follow international best practices in its seven-year scorecard for the Buhari administration.
According to a report citing border security initiatives, the President’s spokesperson, 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.”
