The Nigerian government says it will henceforth issue passports within two weeks, a huge improvement from the months-long wait in the past.
Interior minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo announced the new timeline in Abuja Wednesday. He had in early September given the Nigeria Immigration Service two weeks to clear a backlog of more than 204,000.
The minister apologised the service could not meet the deadline but said they have made great progress.
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“On Sept. 7, we made a promise to sort out the backlogs in two weeks, but we made it in three weeks and I sincerely want to apologise to Nigerians for that,” told journalists, according to the News Agency of Nigeria.
“The issue of passport must be a right and not a privilege. Visa is a privilege but passport is a right. For us, we are sure that if it can work at the NIS, it can work anywhere else.
“We inherited 204,332 enrolments without passport issuance. We gave a marching order because the president is also on our necks to bring solutions and succour to Nigerians,’’ he said.
“The NIS personnel were running three shifts, working round-the-clock to ensure that the backlogs were cleared and to ensure that never again would the issue of backlogs resurface.
“We want to ensure that nobody waits for more than two weeks to get his or her passport.
“As of Oct. 1, we had cleared all the 204,332 backlogs and from records produced by the NIS, passports already collected were 91,981. Outstanding, but available are 112,351 passports,” Tunji-Ojo said.
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The minister asked Nigerians to raise complaints if they fail to receive their passports within the allowed time.
“If there is any passport office where you have done your biometrics and it does not give you your passport, please complain through telephone number 0802 375 3414, preferably SMS and Whatsapp. Or email aa-ajiboye@yahoo.com
“The attitude of a very negligible fraction of NIS officers will not cast aspersions on the work of the majority of good officers,” he said.
He said by December, applicants would be able to upload their passport photographs via NIS portal, rather than going to passport offices for such registration.
“This is 2023. People will be able to upload their passport photographs online with specifications. That is what is done for visa applications; we are advancing in that direction.
“Also, your supporting documents should be uploaded online so that when you go to the passport office, it will just be for biometrics and within five minutes you are done.
“As a person, I do not want anybody to go and stay in a passport office for more than 10 minutes,” he said.
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