Reps move to regulate issuance of work permit to foreigners

The House of Representatives has made significant inroads toward restricting the issuance of work permit to foreign expatriates in fields where Nigerian citizens have requisite knowledge and skills.

In effect, the House has adopted a report of its Committee on Interior seeking amendment to the Immigration Act, 2015.The adoption followed the consideration of the report by the House at its plenary session presided by the Deputy Speaker, Mr. Lasun Yussuff.The proposed law, when signed by the President, will restrict Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) from issuing work permit to foreign expatriates in fields where Nigerian citizens have requisite knowledge and skills.

All the clauses in the report got the nod of the House and were forwarded to the Senate for concurrence.The sponsor of the bill and Leader of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila, in a statement released yesterday by his media aide, Olanrewaju Smart in Abuja, said the adoption of the report by House, which coincided with Executive Order 5 on local content signed by President Muhammadu Buhari, would give legal strength to the intentions of the President.

“This Immigration Act, 2015 Amendment Bill I sponsored in July 2016 preceded the Executive Order made by President Muhammadu Buhari on similar matter on February 5, 2018 and will considerably provide legal teeth to ensure implementation of the presidential order beyond tenure of the current President,” he said.Gbajabiamila also hinted that the amendment to the Immigration Act, 2015 was the House’s response to the growing unemployment in the country.

In another development, Chairman of House Committee on Information and Communications, Alhaji Abdulazak Sa’ad Namdas, has asked Nigerians to place national interest above personal interest, saying that a nation can only grow when people are working for the country and not individuals.

Namdas, who spoke at the weekend in Genyi, his home-town, during his turbanning ceremony as the Ganwi Genyi by His Royal Highness, Gangwari Genyi, Alhaji Umaru Adamu Sanda, said that people that are reducing laws made for the development of Nigeria as targeted at individuals are not fair and patriotic to their country.

He said that it is the responsibility of the lawmakers to defend the country’s nascent democracy by enacting laws that can give the ordinary Nigerians the chance to contribute to the growth of the country.Namdas, who urged elected office holders to be patriotic to those that voted for them, noted that it is only their loyalty to the electorate that can yield dividend of democracy for them.