Judex Okoro, Calabar

The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Cross River Command has appealed to landlords and traditional rulers for support in the on-going pre-registration of migrants in their domain.

The e-registration exercise of all migrants will take place in the 18 local government areas of the state and would last for 90 days.

In an interactive session with newsmen in Calabar on Monday, the State Comptroller, Barr Okey Ezugwu, said the profiling of migrants was a the directive from the Comptroller-General of Immigration as one way of national integration and development.

Ezugwu further said the e-registration is not to find out “whether he has a mission or not but to know that he is here,” but is necessary as Cross River shares boundary with countries as Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea.

“We are commencing the registration of migrants in all the 18 local government areas of the state. Every migrant must be captured and profiled so that we can be held responsible. It helps in planning and enhances our productivity, security wise.

“Cross River State occupies a strategic place when it comes to boundary issues.

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Our peculiar situation makes it imperative to account for every foreigner in the state.

“The registration is free and we appeal to landlords in the state to assist in identifying foreigners living in their houses in order to assist in the registration,” the comptroller stated.

According to him, there are two categories of immigrants including those who are required to register and those who are exempted from registering.

“Those who are exempted are persons under the age of 18, persons enjoying diplomatic immunity and immigrants staying in Nigeria for less than 90 days,” he explained.