You have no business searching passengers' bags at airports - Keyamo tells DSS

The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, has said men of the Department of State Services (DSS) have no business searching passengers' bags at the airports.

The Minister made this known on the 'This Morning' programme on Arise News, where he addressed concerns about the ordeal of travellers flying in and out of the country.

He questioned the rationale behind the DSS checks at airports for outbound travellers who may probably be under security watch.

“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.”

However, the Minister said it's beyond his control to remove from the airports the retinue of agencies that usually cause long queues during clearance checks.

He added that customs officials to focus on items imported into the country, not those exported.

“All these agencies at our airports are not directly under our control; you have multiple agencies, DSS, NDLA, Customs, and Quarantine,” he said.

“And these were in place before we came into office, and they were not directly under my control for us to begin to remove them from the airport.”

The Federal Government recently approved measures aimed at curbing harassment of travellers by unscrupulous officials of various agencies stationed at the airports.

Commenting on the move, Keyamo said the aim is not to remove those agencies but to streamline how they perform their duties.

“Nobody expects to go through an airport without security checks,” the minister said.

“However, the complaints we have consistently received from Nigerians have been complaints bordering on extortion, corruption, and perhaps even the very tardy process of these security checks.

“There are some practices we have noticed among the security agencies that are not under our control that we think do not align with the best practices all over the world,” he added.