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| The Vice Chancellor(in blue) with the Borno NIS Boss, Ismaila Mohammed and others in a group photo |
The Vice Chancellor University of Maiduguri has expressed commitment to partner with the Nigerian Immigration Services to check the activities of foreign students at the institution.
Prof. Aliyu Shugaba disclosed this on Thursday when he received the Borno State Comptroller of Immigration, Ismaila Mohammed at the conference Hall of the school senate building.
Prof. Shugaba told the Borno immigration boss that the institution has been battling with some class of students who claim to be foreign students but at the same time have certificate of origin from local government in Nigeria.
He however added that the authentic foreign students association in the institution have always conducted themselves very well, while those with purported dual citizenship have always been a problem to the institution.
“Foreign students in the university is one of our most difficult problems here. JAMB will always insist that we admit a certain percentage of foreign students. To us our doors are open to foreign students wherever they may come from in the entire world but the once that we are constantly in touch with here are the Chadians, Nigerien, Cameroonians. These are the ones closer to us. Sometimes we have had students from Mali, Senegal, Ghana.
“The difficulty we have is that some of these students, for instance the sometime ago, the consulate of Chad here in Maiduguri brought in their own requests of some of these students. Surprisingly, when we decided to check on the JAMB list, we saw that more than 60% of them have melted into citizens of Nigeria. We discovered that some of them are from Kalabalge, Gamboro Nagala, Dikwa.
“So you see, they were no longer International Students and we got confused. But JAMB was insisting they are foreign students and that we must give them admission as foreign students but we look at it otherwise and the consulate also insisted that they are foreign students. But these students have letters as indigenes from the local government areas they were claiming and so we were confused and at a point we had to stop their admission.
“This kind of dual citizenship thing, if we are not properly educated, I think it will be a great problem to us. Some of them too are good. Those that have grouped themselves as a union of foreign students are always good in behaviors but those with these dual citizenship, at some point we are always having problems with them and you cannot deal with them as foreign students because their letters are showing otherwise. There are some coming from Niger that will tell you they are from Katsina. We will relate with the immigration to solve some of these problems,” Prof Shugaba said.
The Vice Chancellor also promised to open his doors to any government agency that is interested in their affairs.
“As an institution of learning, our doors are always open to institutions and Organizations that are interested in our activities. Immigration has been one of the government agencies that are very much interested in sending their staff for stdies and a good number of your staff are studying in this institution.We encourage other forces like the Nigerian Army to also do same. The DSS are trying as well,” the VC said.
Earlier in his remarks, the Comptroller, Ismaila Mohammed appealed to the Vice Chancellor to continue to accord priority to his staff who apply for admission in the school.
The Borno Immigration boss promised to work closely with the Vice Chancellor to solve the problem of students who are claiming dual nationalities at the institution.
“By the laws of Nigeria, only the President and Commander in Chief can approve dual citizenship for an individual. People cant just claim to have dual nationalities without undergoing the due process and approval. We will work closely with you sir(VC) to solve some of these problems,” Mohammed pledged.
He noted that the Nigeria Immigration Service has undergone massive digitalization in line with International best practices.
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