Over 110,000 fully prepared international passports waiting for collection—Nigeria immigration service boss
Acting Comptroller General of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Wura-Ola Adepoju, says 112,351 passport booklets are yet to be collected by applicants across the 36 states of the federation and the federal capital territory (FCT).
Adepoju spoke on Thursday during a press briefing at the service headquarters, reports The Cable.
She said the service had cleared all the 204,332 passport application backlogs after the two-week deadline issued by Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, minister of interior.
“As of today, 91,981 passport booklets have been collected so far. There are 112,351 others not yet collected,” she said.
NAN reports that Adepoju called on applicants to go to their respective application centres to collect the travel documents.
She said there has been a high demand for the Nigerian passport in the last few years as a result of the “Japa syndrome” in the country.
She assured that the two-week timeline set by the minister for the processing of passports would be adhered to.
“The service and its partners had upgraded their facilities to meet the demand for the document by Nigerians,” she said.
“NIS is working with its partners to make the passport application process fully automated and when the process is completed, an applicant would only visit a passport office for biometric capturing.”
Adepoju asked applicants to shun touts, urging them to contact the service via 08067761196 if any personnel demanded for a bribe from them to get a passport.
“Any personnel caught demanding a bribe would be severely punished; the minister has directed that we make a scapegoat of any corrupt official caught,” she said.
A lot of graft and corruption go on at Festac, Ikoyi and Ikeja passport offices where immigration officers charge as much as N75,000 for new passport procurement and renewal.
