Minister of Interior, Dr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, has pleaded with Nigerians not to give money to any officer of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) or third party to process passport applications, no matter the circumstance.
Tunji-Ojo who noted that the acquisition of a passport was the right of every Nigerian, warned that he is ready to deal with any erring officers and others who undermined the process.
The minister who disclosed this in Abuja, added that said the era when Nigerians waited for months to get their passports was over.
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“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 stressed.
While noting that the Federal Government has issued a two-week timeline for the issuance of passports, he said the NIS has cleared the over 204,000 backlogs of passport applications within three weeks.
The minister apologised to Nigerians that clearance of the backlog had spilled into three weeks, as opposed to the earlier two weeks deadline he gave.
“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.
“The `Renewed Hope’ administration of President Bola Tinubu is one that matches its words with actions.
“The issue of passport must be a right and not a privilege. Visa is a privilege but passport is a right,’’ the minister said.
Tunji-Ojo stressed that with that new development, the Federal Government had been able to hand over the rights of Nigerians to them.
“For us, we are sure that if it can work at the NIS, it can work anywhere else. Nigeria is undergoing a process.
“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 minister, who explained that after strategic meetings with NIS officials and with service providers, the service was able to increase printing machines in passport offices from two to four at no cost, said over 112,351 passports are available for collection .
“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.
The minister said also that he had perused all contracts and agreements the ministry and its agencies entered into with service providers.
He promised that in the next couple of months, passport applicants would be able to upload their passport photographs via the NIS portal, rather than going to passport offices for such registration.
According to him, applicants would only be required to visit the passport offices for their biometrics enrolment.
The minister said the new steps were designed to end the era when passport applicants spent whole days at passport offices.
Tunji-Ojo added that in the new system, the passport office would be able to process more than 400 applications daily, a departure from the past
