The Independent Uganda
Tuesday August 8, 2023
The Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control – DCIC has confiscated over 10,000 Ugandan national identity cards from foreigners.
Simon Peter Mundeyi, the Ministry of internal affairs spokesperson revealed that the foreigners are believed to have beaten the National Identification Registration Authority –NIRA system to fraudulently acquire national IDs.
Mundeyi said the foreigners’ tricks were unearthed as they attempted to beat the Directorate Citizenship and Immigration Control system to acquire Ugandan passports.
Most of those whose documents were confiscated were nationals from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Eritrea, Rwanda, Somalia, Ethiopia, and South Sudan.
Mundeyi said they suspect that the problem may have emanated from the lack of a national data bank at the time of the massive issuance of national IDs.
He said many foreigners took advantage, and hoodwinked NIRA officials that they were Ugandans.
Mundeyi said when foreigners reached the interview stage of getting Ugandan passports, they failed to answer simple questions like greeting in the language of the place they claimed to be coming from.
He said a a person would confidently say he is a Musoga but cannot mention any district in the Busoga region nor could they speak any word in Lusoga. In response, the DCIC team would quickly alert security and have such people arrested.
Two Nigerians and a DRC national were arrested last week also attempting to acquire Ugandan passports.
They all claimed to be Basoga using the name of Kakaire but they did not know anything about Busoga and their way of life.
“One Nigerian is called Akofo Ashraf and he fraudulently acquired a national ID. He pretended to be a Musoga and had the name of Kakaire. He did not know anything about Lusoga. Similarly, another Nigerian identified as Ibrahim Yahaya Muhammed also wanted to get a Ugandan passport as a Musoga by tribe,” Mundeyi said.
Nigerian nationals and Congolese were arrested and detained at Jinja Road police station.
They have already confessed to fraudulently acquiring the country’s identification document through false pretense.