The Federal Government on Saturday signed one-year performance contracts with paramilitary agencies, insisting that they should hit 100 percent goals with ongoing reforms.
The agencies are the Nigeria Immigration Service, the Nigerian Correctional Service, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), the Federal Fire Service (FFS), and the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), now under the Ministry of Interior.
Passports and visa reforms, prison decongestion, inmate reformation in line with global standards, protection of critical national assets and infrastructure, and fire-fighting reforms are major issues and challenges currently being addressed by the agencies in line with their respective mandates.
The performance contracts were signed by Prof Abubakar Audi, Commandant General of the NSCDC; Mr Sylvester Nwakuche, Controller General of Corrections and Commandant General of the FFS; and Mr Samuel Adeyemi. The Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Immigration Service, Mrs Kemi Nanna Nandap, could not sign for the Immigration Service as she was outside the country at the time.
The Minister of Interior, Dr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, who supervised the signing of the performance contracts after a three-day retreat at Zuma Rock Resort, Suleja, Niger State, said the ongoing reforms in all agencies must be seen through to logical conclusions with 100 percent grades. He recalled that, following the last retreat, the Presidential Performance Assessment Initiative had moved the performance from 62 percent to 85 percent, and now the target is 100 percent. He asked the Permanent Secretary to give him one reason why he should replace a winning team.
The Minister emphasized the need for capacity building for personnel of the paramilitary services, stating that such efforts would align them with President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda. He urged the Director General of NIMC, Engr Abisoye Coker-Odusote, to continue reforms to ensure that Nigeria has a solid foundational identity system that is authenticable, verifiable, and free of fraud and abuses.
On the Nigeria Correctional Service, he said reforms should transform and re-form inmates, asserting that correctional centres should no longer be places of condemnation. For the Federal Fire Service, he envisioned a service that would serve as a custodian of emergency medical services by this time next year, one that is liberalized and allows for private sector participation, regulated, accountable, and judged by the number of assets saved.
