The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has received a total sum of N2.6 billion for election security operations from the Federal Government.
The Comptroller-General of Immigration, Muhammad Babandede disclosed this during a briefing on the service’s preparation for the 2019 elections in Abuja yesterday.
He said the money would cover allowances of personnel on election duty including their feeding, transportation and other logistics.
Babandede also, threatened to deport foreigners who may want to disguise as tourists to illegally observe next month’s general elections.
He said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was already taking care of the accreditation of foreign election observers, noting that only genuine observers would be allowed access to election venues.
“If you are a monitor participating in election, you should declare it right from the beginning. We don’t want people to do clandestine operations in the name of election. We don’t want anybody who will come and create tension and crisis in our community. So any non-Nigerian coming in, we must know the purpose of your visit [to Nigeria].
“If you get a visa to come to Nigeria to do business, to do tourism, or to participate in something else other than monitoring election and we find you monitoring election, we will charge you and deport you because that is not what you asked for.”
Babandede said prior to the general elections, entry points into the country would be closed, especially land borders.
