By Tobias Lengnan Dapam
The Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, has applauded the Commandant General of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), for his tremendous achievements under his watch.
Aregbesola made this known yesterday at a quarterly review meeting of the ministry of interior and its agencies at the Nigeria Security And Civil Defense Corps( NSCDC) headquarters, Abuja.
Aregbesola said the purpose of the quarterly performance review meeting is to review the overall quarterly performance of the ministry against the agreed targets and to provide a forum for strategic planning, discussions and policy recommendations and action; identify whether the ministry is meeting the expectations of the public it serves to ensure that decisions and policies are based on facts; identify where improvements need to be made.
“The nine priority areas of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari include stabilizing the macro economy, increase agricultural productivity and food security, ensure energy sufficiency, improve transportation and other infrastructure, drive industrialization, improve health, education and productivity of Nigerians, enhance social inclusion by scaling up social investments, fight corruption and improve governance and provide security for all citizens and foreigners alike.
“The meeting is necessary to ensure that the Ministry and its Services/Agencies track its Deliverables and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) introduced by the delivery unit of the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation in order to review the overall performance of ministries, Departments andAgencies against ministerial mandates and federal government priority areas.
“In addition, you may recall that the Second Ministerial Strategy Retreat held at Ilorin, Kwara State in December, 2021, where a number of priority projects/programmes in both quick wins, short term and long term were identified to be used for the ministry’s Strategy Plans. It is therefore imperative that the quarterly performance review meeting be held to provide a forum for the ministry and its services/agency to interact with a view of realizing the mandates assigned to the ministry.
“I must say that our services have improved tremendously and quite noticeably too, with presentation of our performance at the second ministerial retreat organized by the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation which was applauded and well received. The ministry has established the first ever, among paramilitary agencies, female response squad to support the safe school initiative of the federal government and are being deployed across the state commands of the agency to protect students from being kidnapped in schools, opening of more fire stations and operations of the Federal Fire Service from 14 States and FCT before this administration to the 36 States of the Federation, all of them equipped with modern fire-fighting equipment, launching of the Nigeria Immigration Service(NIS), Code of Conduct and Ethics document which is aimed to guide and regulate the activities and operations of all NIS officers and standardize excellent service delivery across all formations and passport offices in the country amongst others.
“But there are still challenges in some areas. Passports administration remains a sore thumb. Reports of extortion, inflation, frustration of applicants and subversion of due process continue to roll in. There have also been embarrassing report of extortion of new intakes at their orientation and training programmes. There have been fire incidents in which our service could not be of much help while unsavoury accusations of wrongdoings in our custodial centres continue to embarrass the government”.