Lack of a biometric database has been given as the reason why Islamic State (ISIS) radical fugitive clergy, Ahmad Al-Assir was granted a valid Nigerian visa, according to a Premium Times report.
According to an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the country does not make use of biometrics which identifies people via a wide range of avenues including fingerprint, iris print, hand, face, voice, gait or signatures.
The official enthused thus: “While the measure tends to pre-empt influx of terrorists instead they (sic) depend on the use of stop list for potential visa applicants.
“If we have a bank for storing the number of personal data which should be distributed to all our embassies; the prevailing spate of insecurity in the globe which has gone beyond just the antiquated stop list method would be checkmated.”
The official also disclosed that the archaic list still being used by Nigerian embassies were not backed up with photographs and fingerprints, while lamenting that there are no background checks for visa requests and at times, visas are issued in absentia.
He also wondered visa applications go through third party state passport and why Nigerian embassies don’t bother to verify phone numbers and addresses of the person inviting the visa applicant.
He went on to call for the introduction of modern day technology for visa and immigration matters.
