NATIONAL: We don’t need foreign experts to fix damaged equipment — NIS boss

THE Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Immigration Service, Muhammad Babandede, has said the service will not seek the expertise of foreigners to fix damaged equipment in the agency.

Reacting to the fire outbreak that happened at the NIS on Sunday, Babandede noted that the NIS technicians have the expertise to fix damaged equipment in the affected offices and would do so within four days.

The fire was said to have affected the Migration Information and Data Analysis System, the i-24/7 INTERPOL centre as well as the connectivity call centre, all in the administrative building.

It was also learnt that the Federal Fire Service had commenced an investigation into the cause of the Sunday fire outbreak at the Nigeria Immigration Service headquarters in Abuja.

Giving an update on the incident on Monday, Babandede explained that the fire disrupted the call centre operations, which he noted, received about 10,000 phone inquiries on passport and visa from all over the world daily.

He, however, said no data was lost, disclosing that the hard disks had been retrieved by the ICT team, promising that the setback would not affect their services as the technicians were working to restore connectivity.

He stated, “Our technicians are doing their best to restore the data; we have not lost anything. It affected also the 24/i7 connection, which means we are not connected. I’m glad to state that this equipment was installed by our experts, especially the MIDAS. We have the capability to restore them; we don’t require any foreign experts.

“We have invited the Federal Fire Service; the CG, fire service came in person this morning (Monday) to assess the damage and he has set up a technical team of investigators who will investigate and give us a comprehensive report.”

The CG further said that the fire service had promised that the scene would be accessible within three days.