Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, Nigerian Immigration Service Inaugurate Migrants Trust Fund Board To Tackle Menace.

As parts of efforts to strengthen the fight against migrants’ smuggling, the Nigeria Immigration Service has inaugurated the Objects of Smuggling of Migrants Trust Fund Management Board at the Service Headquarters Abuja.

The inauguration, according to a press statement e-signed and released by the PRO, Assistant Comptroller of Immigration, Amos Okpu, represents a significant milestone in the Service’s determination to not only combat persons engaged in migrant smuggling but also ensure that victims rescued from migrants’ smugglers are rehabilitated to continue with their lives.

Speaking shortly after inaugurating the Board, the Honorable Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola represented by Mr. Peter Obodo a Director in the Ministry, lauded the Service for constituting the Board and called on members to get down to work to frontally combat the disturbing activities of smugglers of migrants. He noted that henceforth, migrants’ smugglers would no longer have it as business as usual.

Earlier in his speech, the Comptroller General of Immigration Isah Jere Idris who is the chairman of the Management Board of the Trust Fund, noted that ‘the activities of migrants’ smugglers have assumed unacceptable proportion and therefore every necessary effort should be put in place to checkmate them.

The event is one of such efforts we consider important to make a strong statement about our readiness to give migrants smugglers a good fight’.

He reiterated that the task of the Board is quite tough and enormous and so would require huge investment of time, courage and experiences by members to make good successes in the fight against migrant smuggling.

Section 97 of the Immigration Act, 2015 provides for the establishment of the Objects of Smuggling of Migrants Trust Fund into which all proceeds of the sale of assets and properties of migrants’ smugglers shall be paid.