My performance will bring more youths into gov’t – Interior Minister

Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, has said his performance and that of other youths in the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will create future opportunities for more young persons in governance.

Speaking when he paid a courtesy visit to the headquarters of Daily Trust Newspapers on Wednesday, the Minister commended President Tinubu for giving youths opportunity to serve in his administration.

The Minister, who spoke on a wide range of reforms going on in his ministry, also disclosed that the Contactless Biometric Solution embarked upon by the interior ministry would soon be ready and Nigerians will no longer have to leave the comfort of their home to renew their passports.

He also appreciated the President for his youth friendly disposition, saying “when you have a president that gives me the ministry of Interior to manage, because I am one of the youngest minister of Interior in country so far. That is why I told people that this president does not only give the youths seat on the table, but he gives the youths pivotal seat.

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“The minister of Interior, who is in charge of Internal Security who is responsible for the enhancement of the homeland. That takes a lot of courage, this shows this is a President who believes in the future. The minister of communications and Digital Economy, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment are young persons. The Minister of State for police affairs, she is young.

“The best he can do for this generation is to give us the opportunity to show that my generation is ready for responsibility. Giving us this responsibility, the only thing in my own opinion, I think we can do is to work hard to make sure that we justify the responsibility reposed in us.

“If I do well as Minister of Interior, next time, they will say let us bring more youths on board. If we don’t perform they will say, they said they are ready, but they are not. You will block others. So it is about my generation.

“What I have decided to do is not to disappoint God, to make sure that the President who has decided to take one of the biggest risk, putting internal security into the hands of a young man is not embarrassed by our performance. To ensure that my generation will have bigger opportunity by virtue of what we do. By making sure that I also create a legacy of my own, that even after office, I should be able to look at people with a sense of fulfillment.”

Speaking on the Contactless Biometric Solution being undertaken by the ministry, he said when completed, Nigerians will no longer need to go to the immigration office to renew their passport.

“Why must I have to take a day off to renew my passport. The essence of technology is to make life easier, if life is not easier, more secured and safer, then technology is useless. Technology is to bring convenience, not hardship, we have finished the solution and we were ready to go by March, and we realised that NIS does not have a data center of their own.

“NIS should keep the Data of Nigerians, and we decided to start it and by God’s grace we have been able to complete 100 percent our Data centre for the first time in 61 years with NIS. We have that up and running.

“What we are doing now is Data migration which we hope to end soon, by the time that is done we will conclude on our Contactless Biometric. By the time we conclude that nobody needs to leave his house to renew their passport.”

On the Visa reforms, he said, Visa is key to the ease of doing business and one of the ways to encourage investors to come to your country is by making entry easy for them, “people like Saudi Arabia that said if you have American Visa you can come, they know what they are doing. Other countries are relaxing their visa because they know when you come, you will bring money and spend, it will empower the people, business will flourish.

“We know you have to balance that with National Security, but there is always a point, how come Malaysia, Singapore have gotten it right? Look at it, the most prosperous countries are countries with good immigration policies. If your immigration policy is not right, investors will not come.”