Interrogating the e-passport contract and custody of database

The Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) has been in the news over the scarcity and availability of e-passport booklets. The latest is the renewal of the contract for the company handling the e-passport project. Ten years after it took off, the $138 million e-passport contract signed between IRIS Smart Technology Limited (ISTL) and the federal government for the production and supply of passport booklets as well as the integration of passport offices is muddled up in perceived controversies. The most serious of the hullabaloos is that which threatens national security as the Central Database Centrefor the e-passport is located outside the country and also out of the reach of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS).

The contract signed by the ministry of interior on behalf of the Nigerian government was sealed in 2003 to implement the Harmonised ECOWAS Electronic (SMART) Passport Autogate Systems. Additional contracts were further entered into for the supply of e-Passport Booklets, Wafers and Maintenance services from 2006 to 2015.

The 10-year contract which expires this month, May 2017, is riddled with allegations of corruption, threats to national security, short-changing of Nigerians and abuse of due process. In the case of security threats, for example, ISTL exclusively holds on to the e-passport database and other infrastructure even though government has paid for them; an instrument the ISTL is using to intimidate and blackmail the Nigerian government in order to retain it as the sole contractor for the e-passport project.

The mere fact that the Country Signing Certification Authority (CSCA) as the country’s anchor of trust is controlled by ISTL and not the NIS is one reason strong enough to compel the Nigerian government to exercise restraint in renewing its contract with ISTL. This is with a view to preserving the country’s internal security and safety of its citizens. After all, the CSCA is the seal of Nigeriangovernment which ought to be under its full control and not ISTL, the vendor.

There are claims that the ISTL has over the years refused to train officers of the NIS in the management of the system. The Immigration officers, as reported, cannot even conduct basic maintenance and repairs. This is happening because the company cleverly tied the NIS to its apron by signing maintenance agreement that has questionable exclusion clauses which gives undue advantage to ISTL. Besides, several efforts and directives by the federal government for partnership between ISTL and the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company (NSPMC) were consciously ignored by ISTL, who rather out-sourced some printing jobs to other security printers in Malaysia and Ireland.  

In spite of all these criticisms and claims against the ISTL, officials of the company are reportedly working behind the scene to ensure that the Nigerian government retains them as the sole contractor. The most serious of these disparaging comments against the ISTL is the accusation that key executives of its foreign partners, IRIS Corporation Berhad(ICB), are facing corruption charges in Malaysia, their home-country.

The subterfuge or blackmail by ISTL, the e-passport contractor, that the NSPMC and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) are behind the call for the termination of the e-passport contract is an escapist excuse that is commonsensically not tenable. But even when we lend credence to the cheap black orchestrated by ISTL, I do not find anything wrong with the CBN calling or supporting the call for the disengagement of ISTL so that the contract could be awarded to an indigenous company; the NSPMC. If the NSPMC now has the infrastructural capacity required for the production of e-passport booklets which it previously lackedwhen it was launchedin 2007, it is only apt for government not to re-new the same contract for a foreign company.

There are many reasons why government should prefer an indigenous firm over a foreign one. Involving a foreign company has foreign exchange implications. Second, it would be unwise for a country to continue to use its hard-earned funds to enrich and boost the economy of other countries in faraway Asia. Third, putting the custody of some aspects of Nigeria’s strategic information about its citizens in the hands of foreign firms cannot be in the best interest of the country’s securityand safety ofits people. 

As for the reasons why government should not reconsider ISTL in the renewal of the e-passport contract, the following whys and wherefores could be relied upon. The refusal by ISTL to train NIS officials on basic maintenance techniques in order to sustain their gratuitous monopoly of the system has been a deliberate attempt by ISTL to make the federal government and the NIS vulnerable to its economic whims and caprices. The sub-letting of some security printing to otherforeign companies to the exclusion of the NSPMC does not represent any goodwill from a business partner. In this era of the change mantra, it would not be ideal to engage a company like the ISTL whose foreign partners are facing corruption charges in their home country.

It would be recalled that on March 2, 2017, the NIS declared to the Nigerian public that there was a shortfall in the supply of e-passport booklets. But only recently, the NIS came out and denied the earlier report which said there was scarcity of passport booklets in the country. Sunday James, the NIS spokesman, who spoke on behalf of the Comptroller-General of the NIS Muhammad Babandede said that there are passport booklets across all issuing centers in Nigeria and missions abroad.

We just hope that this change of position on the scarcity and availability of e-passport booklets is not intended to give ISTL a clean bill of competence and integrity in order to justify the alleged renewal of its e-passportcontract.Public officers should remember that they are bound by their oaths of office to put the interest of Nigeria over any individual or group or regionalinterest. May Allah (SWT) guide our leaders and public officers in positions of authority aright, amin.