Why Nigeria issued wanted Lebanese terrorist, Al-Assir, visa — Official

Nigerian embassies do not capture applicants’ bio-metric data and that was the reason Ahmad Al-Assir, a radical Lebanese Islamic cleric was able to get an entry visa in attempt to travel to Nigeria but unfortunately for him was arrested, an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs revealed to Premium Times.

''While the measure tends to pre-empt influx of terrorists instead they (sic) depend on the use of stop list for potential visa applicants,''the official told PT on the condition of anonymity. ''If we have a bank for storing the number of personal data which should be distributed to all our embassies; the prevailing spate of insecurity in the globe which has gone beyond just the antiquated stop list method would be checkmated.''

Bio-metrics cover a variety of unique identifiable attributes of people including fingerprint, iris print, hand, face, voice, gait or signatures, and are used for identification and authentication.

Mr. Al-Assir, a radical Muslim cleric, was arrested on August 15, after he was caught trying to find his way into Nigeria through Cairo, Egypt, with a fake Palestinian passport and a valid Nigerian visa at the Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport in Lebanon.

President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered an investigation into how the wanted terrorist was able to obtain a valid Nigerian visa.