The Nigeria Immigration Service has revealed plans by the agency to acquire aircraft, helicopters and drones.

The Acting Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Immigration Service, Mrs Caroline Wuraola Adepoju said drones and aircraft will be used for surveillance and aerial monitoring of Nigerian borders and also to check immigration.

Delivering a speech at a retreat organised by NIS Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Command Lagos entitled: “One Impression: inter-agency collaboration”, Adepoju revealed that the acquisition of the equipment is already captured in the 2024 budget of the Ministry of Interior.

The NIS acting Comptroller-General also promised that the agency she heads will continue to invest in technology to drive the production of travel documents and other initiatives that would boost the security at the country’ s borders. She also revealed that the NIS will be deploying electronic gates at the airports to ease the facilitation of passengers coming into and out of the country.

She said; “We are doing everything we can to ensure that NIS gets its aircraft back, we used to have aircraft for border surveillance, we are now putting this into our budget.

“We are going to buy aircraft, we will buy drones, we are going to buy helicopters to ensure that we effectively do aerial border management.

“Very soon, NIS will be deploying the e-gate to make it seamless for our nationals to come in, make it less stressful. In the early part of 2024 we will deploy the e-gate ensuring that our MIDAS will improve on them, ensuring our borders, air, land and sea are fortified.

“The electronic gate, for example our nationals may not need, except they are persons of interest, to be attended to by immigration officers."