The Minister of Interior, Dr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, said on Friday that the Federal Government would soon introduce the Digital Travel Credential (DTC) to ease air travel in the country.

Tunji-Ojo, who announced this in Abuja at the end of a two-day capacity building training on Advanced Passenger Information/Passenger Name Record API/PNR at the headquarters of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), said it was part of ongoing reforms to make air transportation seamless in the country.

He said the training programme organized for some selected personnel of the NIS was packaged by Newworks and led by specialists from the International Air Transport Association, IATA.

Describing the training as timely, the Minister said it was designed to provide in-depth knowledge on API/PNR standards, best practices, and implementation strategies targeted at a more secure borders for Nigeria.

Reflecting on the ongoing reforms, the Minister said the electronic gates installed at the nation?s international airports would take just 14 seconds to clear Nigerians coming back into the country.

He added that with the API/PNR also in place, ?our personnel can now handle migrants, passengers, based on objectivity rather than subjectivity.

?When we started, we had so many vendors all over the world but we decided that we will respect your contract on border surveillance and all I asked was whether you could give me the best solution.

?Today, with the API/PNR, with the e-gates, I can confidently say, with what I have seen, a Nigerian company has done well. You did not spare any expenses; you brought in IATA, collaborated with them and gave us the best.

?When the president came on board, he met an NIS that was just a passports and visa issuing agency and he wasn?t comfortable with that; knowing full well that that was secondary because your primary mandate is border control governance and management. Today, under the leadership of the CGIS, Kemi Nandap, I am happy to say that NIS is back on track.

?We have done this to put an end to the stereotype of Nigerians across the globe. Today the e-gates are there, waiting to be commissioned to go live. Efficiency is not a function of discomfort but of product and productivity. With the e-gates, Nigerians coming into Nigeria can have that sense of fulfillment that being a Nigerian is not a function of endurance but of enjoyment. It takes 14 seconds to clear a passenger?, Tunji-Ojo said.

The Minister commended his counterpart in the Aviation Ministry, Mr Festus Keyamo (SAN) for the support he gave to see some of the projects through, saying ?before now, for 14 years, what stopped the project was infighting between Ministries of Aviation and Interior ?.

?The implementer of this API/PNR is the NIS but the regulator will be the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority NCAA,? he said.

The Comptroller-General of Immigration Mrs Kemi Nandap said about 100 personnel had been trained on the API/PNR, asserting that the initiative would help with better border security while also facilitating swift and easy clearance of passengers.

?We have trained almost 100 officers. This project will help our borders to become more secure and help with compliance with international best practices. It will help us to be proactive in terms of cross border crimes because crime visibility will become clearer, we will see most of the crimes before they happen. Clearance of passengers will also be faster.

?With the API/PNR, we pull data from the airlines and it tells us about who and who is coming into the country. It will help with effective monitoring of our borders,? Mrs Nandap said. (The Nation)

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