By Nkiru Njemanze
The Federal Government has announced a two-week timeline for the processing of passport applications.
The Minister of Interior, Dr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo disclosed this in Abuja at a media parley to review his directive to the Nigeria Immigration Service, NIS to clear over 204,000 backlog of passport applications.
According to the Minister, the era of Nigerians waiting for months to get their international passports is over.
The minister who apologized to Nigerians that clearance of the backlog spilled into three weeks against the two weeks deadline he gave, however praised officers and men of the service for working day and night including weekends and public holidays to meet with his directive.
According to him, while procurement of visas is a privilege, acquiring international passports is a right.
He also expressed the commitment of President Bola Tinubu not to increase the cost of passport applications in spite of the foreign exchange volatility.
“As of October 1, we had cleared all the 204,332 backlog and from the records produced by NIS, the number of passports already collected is 91,981 with 112,351 yet to be collected.
He advised Nigerians to go and collect their passports urging them not to give money to anybody.
” If there is any passport office where you have done your capturing and they do not give you your passport, please lodge your complaints via the following; 0802 375 3414, preferably SMS and Whatsapp. Or email [email protected]”.
The minister said he had perused all the contracts and agreements the ministry and its agencies had entered into with service providers, saying in the next couple of months, passport applicants would be able to upload their own passport photographs via the immigration portal, rather than going to passport offices for such capture.
According to him, applicants would only be required to visit passport offices for their biometrics enrolment.
He said the government of President Tinubu understands the needs of the people stressing that he would not want anybody to go and stay in a passport office for more than 10 minutes.
Edited By Grace Namiji
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