Huawei trains 500 immigration personnel in paperless system

As part of efforts to enshrine a paperless governance system, major international technology firm, Huawei, has commenced the training of 500 officials of the Nigerian Immigration Service, NIS, which monitors and provides data on the movement of persons in and out of the country.

The training, which kicked off in Abuja at the weekend, is expected to empower officers of the Service with appropriate Information and Communications Technology, ICT skills and the awareness and soft skills that give competitive advantage globally.

Speaking at the commencement of the training, Comptroller General of the NIS, Muhammad Babandede, stressed how the Service needs ICT as strategic tool to providing solutions to its operations and services.

“Today, ICT has made a vital impact on the society and has change our way of life. It saves time, cost and makes operations easy to perform. NIS as an agency that provides services and enhances border and internal security cannot afford to be left behind.

It needs ICT for data storage, data/information sharing, data analysis, evaluation of security threats, control and monitoring online real-time and others. As a matter of fact, ICT is now an integral part of our daily lives. Therefore, for an officer to remain in the analogue state is like a fish out of water in today’s world,” he noted.

He observed that the programme was developed after detailed evaluation of the needs of the Service, to attain the requisite competence comparable with the best immigration agency in the world.

Managing Director of Huawei Technologies in charge of Abuja, Tank Liteng, who spoke at the flag off of the training, observed that it is planned to enable officials of the Service catch up with global trends and change Nigeria into ICT talents centre of the region and the world.

“A detailed evaluation of the requirement of NIS necessitated the course outline of this training programme. It shall be facilitated by Huawei experts with actual practical experiences. We understand the need by our experts in the field of ICT industry talent cultivation with the aim of helping trainees obtain the right competences and skills that match their different positions in organisations,” Liteng said.

He was optimistic that the programme would help reshape the workflow of NIS by increasing its efficiency and transparency of governance.

He explained: “We are living in a new age where even journalists going for an interview use to come with notepads and pens, but now, all they need are their phones to achieve the objectives in a more effective way. Huawei is willing to make full use of its advantage in the field of ICT infrastructure to realise this process in order to accelerate workflow.”

He highlighted how ICT is transforming the world of work by creating opportunities and making labour markets more innovative, inclusive, and global.

“ICT skills are the new competences for a greener and smarter economy,” Liteng stressed.