DAVID Shikfu Parradang, Comptroller General of the Nigeria Immigration Service (CGI) is a member of the prestigious National Institute, Kuru, Plateau State and an Officer of The Federal Republic (CFR).
Born on September 6, 1959 in Pankshin, Plateau State, Parradang, like he is fondly called holds a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Jos and a Masters Degree in Public Administration from University of Lagos.
He joined the Nigeria Immigration Service in 1982 as an Assistant Superintendent of Immigration. He was promoted Comptroller of Immigration Service on January 1, 2004 and became Assistant Comptroller-General of Immigration (ACG) in January 1, 2012.
He has attended series of professional programmes in the process of climbing career ladder. He was at the Immigration Training School in Kano from 1982 to 1983, weapons Training Course, Police College, Ikeja in 1985, Infantry Centre and School, Jaji in 1993 and National Development Course, Taiwan in 2003.
He also attended second command course, Immigration Command and Staff College, Sokoto in 2004, Security Awareness Couse, Lagos, in 2006 and Senior Executive Course at NIPPS, Kuru in 2007.
The Comptroller General has vast experience in immigration duties having served at Kano State Command, Kwara State Command, Enugu State Command, Murtala Mohammed International Airport Command, Ikeja, Lagos, Diplomatic Desk in Lagos and Passport office, Ikeja, Lagos. He was also the Special Assistant to two previous Comptrollers-General of Immigration, Mrs. Uzoamaka Nwizu and Mr. Chukwurah Udeh.
Before his appointment by President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, he was the Assistant Comptroller-General State Co-ordination in the Directorate of Operations/Passport at the Service Headquarters.
“My plan for the Nigeria Immigration Service is divided into four cardinal areas. We want to secure our borders in a process and way that has not been done before that would be able to yield positive results for the security of Nigeria. That is our primary and objective plan that we would want to do.
“Luckily we have got government to approve the establishment of a border patrol corps, which is not an entirely new creation from our side, but it is just a focus on border patrolling. We are going to muster officers that are already in the service to get them to do border patrolling. We are going to train them, take care of their welfare like an insurance to be able give their best in the wide expanse of land in our borders from the north to east and also the sea sides of the country.
“We are very much aware that people say our borders are porous but we have to devise new strategies of securing it and we have the manpower and ideas that we feel would work to secure our borders and that is one key area we want to do.
“The other key area we have as our plan for immigration service is the internal control and monitoring of personnel in our midst. We believe it is the job of the immigration to complete data on every person that is non-Nigerian within the country, to be able to tell exactly who is where and at what time. It is our job to check out that those people are living within the laws of Nigeria in terms of immigration rules and regulation. If they are regular immigrants, they would have the papers and if they aren’t, they should have to come to the control and the official control post. We want to check this and monitor them and be able to tell you that, we have X number of Ghanaians in Lagos, X number of Nigerians in Kano and so on. We want to be so correct about it and monitor expatriate to know where they are and also those coming in for visit in hotels.
“If you have read the papers, in all states of the federation, for those that are not regular like those from countries in the West African countries, we know that there is an ECOWAS protocol, but there are specifications on what you should do if you come in through recognized border process. And if you come in with recognized travel documents acceptable, we allow you have the right of residence, the right of establishment to do business. But if you don’t meet the specifications, we should move you. We would monitor and make it comfortable for people to keep to the rules and those who don’t keep to the rules we would remove them totally. We are very much aware that doing this would require dedicated manpower, our officers must be taken care of and their capacity must be developed for them to perform in a better way.
“So we are putting in a lot of effort in training and manpower development. We also have other welfare schemes for our people, we want to do housing schemes by using the cooperative society to develop this so when you are in the service or, or leave, you would not be extorting because we have basically been taken care of. Since we came on board, we have made sure we pay salaries before the 26th of every month and we have been religious about it. We want to take care of our staff and we want to use relevant technology. So that is our plan for the service.” He said then on assumption of office.
Since he assumed duty as the Comptroller General of the NIS, Parradang has spearheaded a lot of laudable changes in the NIS.
Apart from ensuring improved welfare for NIS officers and men, he has also reduced corruption and extortion at Immigration passports offices to almost zero level.
Under him, NIS has attracted more partnership from the organized private sector. Some of the infrastructures that have been attracted from the private sector under him are: the Ultra-Modern prayer chapel at the Ikoyi Passport Office, Modern Passport Applicants waiting Lounge and exquisite Blocks of Toilets all at the Ikoyi Passport Office.
During his tenure, one more Passport Office was opened at Alausa, Ikeja and another one to be located in Lekki is on the way. The Immigration boss is passionate about reforming the agency.
Parradang and his team have sanitized passports offices. Passports racketeers who usually extort innocent Nigerians have been chased away.
The most tangible of all his achievements was the introduction of the Immigration Border Patrol Corp.
The first batch of 1000 officers and men of the corp graduated in Kano seven months ago.
Another 500 set of Immigration officers and men specially trained to keep watch on illegal gateways across the country graduated last month from the Nigerian Prisons Training School in Kaduna.
Parradang took advantage of the event in Kaduna to warn terrorists and criminal elements to keep-off Nigeria.
With the graduation of these combatants, the number of Immigration personnel now manning the over 900 illegal routes across Nigeria’s border have received a boost.
The new trainees passed out last month after over one month rigorous anti-border crimes training in a colourful ceremony attended by the Governor of Kano State, Alhaji Musa Kwankwaso and other top security brass.
The officers and men would join the other 1,000 officers already manning some of the numerous entry and exit points in and out of the country.
The Immigration boss, Mr. David Shikfu Parradang believes that the trained officers would help reduce the influx of aliens and illegal armament into the country as well as keep vigil against terror elements at the borders.
According to Parradang at the event then, the first batch of 1,000 personnel were mobilized for a similar specialized training at the Immigration Training School, Kano in April this year and they have all since been deployed across our various border formations.
“This feat is in furtherance of our reinvigorated efforts at making Border patrol which is a core component of our statutory duties more effective, particularly because of the prevailing challenges within the Nigeria’s security milieu.
“It is very imperative for me to sincerely express our profound gratitude to the esteemed office of the National Security Adviser for the tremendous financial support towards making this training programme a reality. This is a clear indication that the NSA places a great premium on border policing as a fundamental factor in our collective efforts towards national security.
“In furtherance of the mandate of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) to secure Nigeria’s expansive borders and the vision of the present NIS administration to vigorously contain the rising tide in the challenges and threats posed by the nefarious activities of trans-border criminals, including terrorists, it was considered expedient that there was the obvious need to take certain unprecedented security measures to address the perennial predicament of border insecurity that has bedeviled the country over the years, with the attendant implications on the socio-economic lives of most Nigerians.”
He added: “ The Nigeria Immigration Service pushed for the establishment of Border Patrol Corps which was approved by the Federal Government in August 2013. The rationale behind this initiative is to mobilize a group of virile and gallant officers and men and give them specialized training for border patrol functions and equip them with modern gadgets as a deliberate step to make our land borders more secure.”
On assumption of duty in June 2013, Parradang had constituted a committee to fashion out a new blue print that would guarantee global best practice and efficient service delivery in Immigration operations and activities, with particular focus on border security; Internal Monitoring and control and the Application of Modern Technology and staff welfare.
He had also announced a for-point agenda to serve as guide for the repositioning of the NIS.
The 4-point agenda are: Revitalized and Retooled border patrol, Internal Monitoring and Control, Use of ICT for better service delivery to Nigerians and a total Immigration Officer with robust welfare plans.
The governor of Kaduna State, Kwankwaso who was represented by the Kaduna State Head of Service, Mr. Dogo Habila urged the Nigeria Immigration Service and other security agencies to work towards cleansing the nation of terrorist’s elements.
Parradang who enjoys reading, traveling, playing tennis and golf is happily married with Children.
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