By Dipo Olowookere
Data released on Friday by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has revealed that the immigration statistics from 2013 to 2016 reflected that a total of 1,822,501 persons arriving Nigeria were processed by the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) in 2016 as against 3,275,929 persons processed in 2015.
The agency disclosed that 1,209,897 of the person were Nigerian nationals while the remaining 612,604 were non-Nigerians.
Similarly, it said a total of 1,659,624 persons departing Nigeria were processed by the immigration in 2016 as against 3,600,934 persons processed in 2015.
Furthermore, 1,181,211 of the persons were Nigerian nationals while the remaining 478,413 were non-Nigerians.
In addition, a total of 449,818 persons moved through the 114 recognised land border control posts in 2016, while 3,031,862 moved through the airport control posts in 2016 as well.
According to the NBS, 197 arrests were made for various immigration offences during screening by nationality in 2016.
From the data, 15 and 3,065 foreigners were deported and repatriated in 2016 respectively, while 3,457 Nigerians were deported/repatriated from abroad in 2016.
The Mr Yemi Kale-led stats office said the NIS generated N36.2 billion revenue locally and $53.8 million as offshore revenue in 2016.
A breakdown of how the revenue was generated showed that passport issuance raked N13.4 billion, while N169.5 million was made from non-refundable revenue for operations.
Also, address verification generated N1.4 billion, combined expatriate residence permit and aliens card (CERPAC) raked N19.9 billion, revenue from emergency travel certificate (ETC) and Ecowas Residence Card (ERC) made N48.3 million, and Extension of Visitors’ Pass raked N1.3 billion.
