The Federal Government has directed the
Nigeria Immigration Service(NIS) to inform all federal and state and local
government institutions to henceforth hold onto retired officials’ retirement
and severance benefits until they return their diplomatic passports.
This was
disclosed by the Comptroller-General of Immigration, Mohammed Babandede yesterday during an interview, i
The
Comptroller-General stated that strict measures might also be considered,
including prosecution of recalcitrant former public office-holders, noting
however, that some past officials had submitted their diplomatic passports to
the immigration service.
He said, “Following the reluctance of some former
office-holders to return their diplomatic passports, I wrote to the Presidency
and proposed that we could take certain measures to compel those who are not
entitled to the diplomatic passports to return them.
“The NIS has
received approval to write to federal, state and local government
institutions to henceforth include the return of this government document as
some of the things to return before payment of retirement benefits.
“If you are a
senator or member of the House of Representatives, before you finish your
tenure, there is something that is called severance benefits and before you
collect the benefits, you must return your diplomatic passport.
“Also, you
cannot cross the border with the diplomatic passport whether going or coming if
you are not entitled to it, we will collect it. The best I can do for you is to
give you photocopy of the passport or a letter that I have confiscated the
passport.”
“The next
thing we will do is to go house-to-house to collect it. It is an offence. I
told a former minister that it is an offence for you to hold a (diplomatic)
passport when you don’t deserve it . It attracts two years jail term; we will
soon begin to catch defaulters. People have started returning a lot of
the passports,” he said.
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