The Cross River State Government has appealed to the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) to temporarily shut down the country’s borders until the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) is completely contained.
The State Security Adviser, Mr. Rekpene Bassey, made this appeal yesterday at the Government House in Calabar when he received the new state Comptroller of NIS, Mrs. Cecilia Adeuyi, who led a team on a courtesy visit.
Bassey said Nigeria ought to have taken the initiative of closing down its borders immediately the EVD was reported in some countries in the West African region.
He appealed to Adeuyi to deploy more officers to the land border between Nigeria and Cameroon.
The security adviser said, “You are aware that Cameroon has shut its borders. We ought to have taken that initiative immediately we heard of the outbreak in Guinea and Liberia. We have had cases of people being stranded at the National Inland Waterways Authority jetty at Marina resort because of our porous borders.”
He said many illegal immigrants had been accessing the country through the NIWA jetty, urging Adeuyi to prevail on her superiors to shut down the land borders “temporarily” until the EVD was contained.
Bassey also pleaded with Adeuyi to check the issuance of travel documents to the wrong persons in order to protect the image of the country.
Earlier, Adeuyi had told the State Security Adviser that she her visit was to formerly intimate him on her assumption of office.
She said that following the need to strengthen the nation’s borders, the Federal Government recently trained 1,000 Border Corps, adding that NIS would ensure that both men and material resources were deployed to tighten border patrol.
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