Festus Keyamo, the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, has disclosed that the Department of State Services (DSS) has no business searching passengers’ bags at the nation’s various airports.
This is even as the minister lamented the presence of multiple government agencies carrying out joint inspections at the airports which in turn causes congestion due to the lack of space.
Keyamo raised these concerns while speaking on a programme on Sunday, December 8, 2024.
“We’ll sit down, but we needed to take this step. DSS, you are not, you have no business searching people’s bags,” he said.
“You are profiling individuals who are going out of the country, people who have been, maybe who are under security checks and all that.”
Speaking about the queues at airports caused by multiple agency checks, he said the congestion often leads to blockages that extend to the entrance gates.
“What is that joint inspection table? You will see customs, DSS, NDLEA, quarantine, and on and on, all lined up on the same table,” he said.
“Each of them telling you to open your bags, and they’ll be dipping their hands into your bags one by one, passing you on to the next agency on the same table, and all, you know, I have not seen this in any part of the world.”
Keyamo said the ministry has dismantled the joint inspection table at airports.
He explained that the agencies now work with aviation security at the screening machine to eliminate repetitive searches.
“So, you can then observe all the bags passing through the machine jointly, without harassing anybody,” he said.
“That is why the machines are there in the first place. You, NDLEA, customs, if you notice anything like drugs inside or a suspicious package, pull the person aside, take the person away into your private screening room, and do your further searches there” he added.
