The Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, Wednesday, denied knowledge of the directive mandating the retirement of the current Acting Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Immigration Service, Isah Idris, Fielding questions from State House correspondents, at the end of the weekly Federal Executive Council, FEC, meeting, presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the Council Chambers Presidential Villa, Abuja, the Minister said, “It is Greek to me.”

Recall that it was earlier reported that the Governing Board of the Nigeria Immigration Service served a retirement notice to the Acting CGI, Isah Idris, effective on or before April 24, 2023. 

The board had cited the expiration of the one-year extension of service granted by President Muhammadu Buhari, directing the CGI to hand over to the most senior Deputy Comptroller General.

The memo, dated April 17, 2023, with code number CDCFIB/APPT.CG&DCG/61/VOL.IV/74 was signed by the Civil Defence, Correctional, Fire and Immigration Services Board Secretary, Obasi Edmond, on the orders of the Board chairman and Interior Minister, Rauf Aregbesola.

It is titled “Notification of expiration of one-year extension in office as acting Comptroller-General, Nigeria Immigration Service.”

It read, “I write to draw your attention to the end of one-year extension in office granted to you by Mr President via letter no. SH/COS/42/3/3/A128 date April 22, 2022, and which would be expiring on April 24, 2023. 

“Consequently, you are directed to hand over to the most senior Deputy Comptroller-General on or before Monday, April 24, 2023, pending Mr President’s appointment of a substantive Comptroller-General of the Service. 

“The board is grateful to you for your immense contributions to the Nigeria Immigration Service and to the country and wishes you success in your future endeavours.” 

But when asked to clarify the matter, Aregbesola said: “It is Greek to me.”

The Minister at the briefing disclosed that the council approved the grant of Nigerian citizenship to 385 foreign nationals. 

He said while 317 persons will get citizenship by naturalisation, 68 will be conferred with citizenship by registration. 

According to him, “The Council today approved grant of Nigeria citizenship by naturalisation to 317 applicants and Nigerian citizenship by registration by registration to 68 applicants who have met all the constitutional and administrative requirements for the grant of the Nigerian citizenship.”

He further said that Council approved a Public-Private Partnership contract to provide subscription-based fire safety for residential, institutional and commercial buildings. 

The National Fire Detection and Alarm System will incorporate life safety systems, networking, monitoring and dispersion of fire personnel in real-time, the minister explained. 

He said, “This will be a public-private partnership arrangement with Hoist Life Safety System Limited. At completion, Nigerians, who so desire, would subscribe to an automatic fire alarm system that you can have in their house. 

“It will raise the alarm at each fire services station nationwide to point our firemen and officers to any fire emergency. 

“It is going to be a cloud-based system with modern technology, fully digitised to facilitate prompt response to any distress or emergency on fire. This has no cost to the government but subscription will be determined at the end of the entire process.”