A total of 110 Spokespersons of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), Thursday, December 16, 2021, concluded a series of training Workshops on the use of effective Communication Interventions for Combating Irregular Migration in Kaduna, Kaduna State.
The workshops, according to a statement by Amos Okpu, Assistant Comptroller of Immigration, Service Public Relations Officer, held from December 15-16, 2021 and had participants drawn from Commands and Formations across the country.
The sessions “offered tremendous opportunity for deepened interrogations of the existing communication and public engagement strategies with a view to repositioning the communication approach of the Service to meet up with the increasing challenges of the emerging corporate environment,” he said.
Declaring the event open, the acting Comptroller General, Isah Jere Idris, who was represented by the Zonal Coordinator of Zone “B”, ACG Zainab Lawal noted that management remains strongly committed to training and retraining exercises for the purpose of building a robust workforce that can sufficiently contend with unfolding realities of modern migration management. He stressed that the best of machines and other equipment without a competent and skilled workforce cannot lead any organization through the increasingly competitive global environment.
He enjoined participants to make good use of the opportunity offered by the training and be ready to step down the training to their colleagues on return to their various Commands and Formations for enhanced impact to the Service. He thanked the European Union for their various capacity building interventions for the Service while assuring of management’s renewed commitment to sustaining enduring relationships.
In his remark, the leader of the Project Team of the Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policy (FIIAPP), the implementers of the Project, Mr. Rafael Mois Molina, represented by Mr. Omotosho Bello, said that the training exercises were part of his organization’s efforts at expanding the capacity of NIS Communication Officers in their public engagement efforts in the battle against human trafficking and smuggling. He noted that his organization is currently implementing some EU programmes on the fight against the twin evils of human trafficking and smuggling and that NIS is one of the strategic partners in the project.
During the Workshops, participants were taken through insightful lectures by some resource persons on topics such as the Role of Public Relations Officers in Organizational Growth, the Use of Social Media in Combating Irregular Migration as well as expositions on the place of Behavioural Change Communication in addressing Social Change Issues, among others.
It could be recalled that the first batch of the Workshops which held in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State from November 24 – 26, 2021 had Forty-Five participants while the Kaduna batch had Sixty-Five.
A major highlight of the event was the release of a communiqué which stressed, among other things, the need for the Service to ensure that appointment of Public Relations Officers in the Service should henceforth be based on possession of requisite qualifications and proven demonstration of competence and integrity.
