1.1 Introduction
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens (Bartram et al., 2014; Bauder, 2006; Borjas et al., 2014). Immigrant is a person that comes or immigrates into a country who is not a national or citizen of that country, William Blackstone (2012). According to the Act of Nigeria Immigration Service Commission (NISC), an immigrant is an individual who does not have Nigerian citizenship and is not a Nigeria national. The NISC defines a national of Nigeria as one whom, while not a citizen owes permanent allegiance to the Nigeria States. One owes personal allegiance to the Nigeria States if that person has taken an oath of naturalization. Naturalization occurs when an alien applies for citizenship. They must prove a series of eligibility requirements in order for the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services to certify the naturalization request.
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
The immigration department was, in one way or another, affected by these economic hardships and, therefore, the development of public service delivery remained stagnant. The history of the development of public services delivery in the immigration department in Nigeria started with the enactment of the immigration ordinance of 1924 under then Tanganyika British colonial rule. The law was used to manage migration matters up to 1948. In 1949, the department came to be known as the immigration and passport department as an independent department. Immigration services such as passports, citizenship, visa, and residence permits were the main mandate of the department. As services were in paper form, a range of application forms and procedures had to be completed for a customer to apply for services. Furthermore, a visa administration system (VAS) was introduced. A visa sticker has to be generated from a specific computer system after swapping device (URT, 2011).
From the year 2005, the government initiated efforts to modernize immigration services. The passport issuance system changed into a semi-electronic service delivery system because application processes remained manual, but printing became electronic. Passports had a Machine Readable Zone (MRZ) where applicant information was stored in a specific data storage device (Larkotey et al., 2017). This change aimed to ensure the quality of the service and enhance national security due to fears of terrorism and other transnational crimes that emerged in the 2000s (URT, 2011; Habibu et al., 2019). The introduction of the residence permits issuance system in 2012 was a shift to semi-electronic service delivery in the issuance of residence permits to the foreigners residing in the country. Just as in passport procedures, residence permit application processes remained manual but were printed with specific electronic features. It marked the route to the electronic service delivery in the department.
An Immigration information system is a system with the general process and procedures of ensuring that Nigerian Immigration Service can fulfill all tasks required achieving its objectives by way of effectively securing the nation’s boarders and also recording the information’s about all immigrants coming into the country. Peter,(2013). An immigration information system will also enables the Nigerian Immigration service to improve their services and performance through a process of continuous innovation and concept of immigrant management. A more complete system would include immigrant passport, serial ID, also flexibility and reliability, as well as auditing tools to implement corrective actions in addition to scheduled activities of the commission, creating an upward spiral of continuous improvement to the commission.
Empirical evidence has shown that there is a significance correlation between Nigerian Immigration service and computerized immigrant control system. There was also a claim stated, that Immigration service that has poor system of managing its activities will generally lead to poor service rendering. An immigration information system can be developed in house or outsourced from a software developer. This can be accomplished by outsourcing certain components or the entire system. The challenges encountered that led to the execution of the research work is that, from the inception of organisation, emphasizing on a particular department in the organisation the immigration has been engaging or encountering enormous problem running their daily activities in producing the travelling document for the immigrants/emigrants.
1.3 Statement of Problem
Investigation revealed that there has been several problems facing the existing system of immigration management, these problems include:
- Unauthorized access to important immigrant information records by intruders and impersonators;
- General misplacement of immigrant management materials;
- Lack of effective database storage mechanism; and
- Consistent consumption of time in the process of compilation and management of immigrant’s record.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study
The aim of the study is to design and implement a Immigration Information System using Immigration Service Uyo as a case study. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows to develop an application software that will:
- Implement a better way of recording the information of immigrant that comes into the country;
- Present a high storage database mechanism for immigration service;
- Enhance the services being provided by the Nigeria immigration service personnel; and
- Ensure a secure method that will significantly reduces the high level of insecurity in the country.
1.5 Significance of Study
The findings of this research are significant in the following ways.
- The system will be user friendly interface that will assist the end-user during software operation.
- It would help serve as a reference material for prospective researchers.
- Improved nationality security and existence.
- Unauthorized access of file at immigration office will be reduced.
- Unlike the conventional methods that file are prone to decay, data will be effectively secured with new system.
This study will be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.6 Scope of Study
The scope of the research is focused on the Design and Implementation of Immigration Information System using Immigration Service Uyo as a case study.
1.7 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Establishment Policies: Establishment policies posed a serious limitation as most staffs are not ready to release information needed for this project work. There were lots of information needed from the staffs of this institution to enhance the study which took them time to release or they did not release at all for security purposes, hence the scope was reduced.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).
1.8 Definition of Terms
Registration: This means to keep records received from the management for reference purposes.
Security: This is the protection of information asset through the use of technology, process and training. Is equally the degree of resistance to or protection from harm. It implies to any vulnerable and valuable asset such as person, dwelling, community, nation or organization.
