The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), has announced that with effect from June 1, 2021, passports will be issued six weeks from the day of application.
The Service also disclosed that all application, process and payment must be done online without human to human contact, this it said is to attain zero corruption.
The Comptroller General of Immigration (CGI), Muhammad Babandede, who stated this at a meeting with all Passport Control Officers and the Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, said the new guideline was reached to reduce bottlenecks in service delivery.
Security Watch Africa reports that the meeting was also attended by Passport Officers from the 42 Passport offices nationwide, 52 missions abroad.
Issues surrounding shortage, timely service delivery, bottlenecks, touting, third party, and other vices militating against effective and efficient service delivery in passport centres, were ironed out.
In his address, the NIS boss thanked the Minister of Interior, for his support and guidance and assured the Minister of effective and efficient service delivery home and abroad in view of the directive and tasking the officers to deliver or be posted out.
He said the opportunity to meet with them was to give them fair hearing and give them the chance to change the narratives, emphasizing on the need to create goodwill rather than extorting or allowing touts to keep denting the image of the Service and making passport a difficult document to get, stressing that Express Centre opened at Maitama will be replicated around the country to meet the demand of those in need of urgent and express treatment at a cost.
“While other applicants go through due diligent process and time to get the passport. With the Ministers directive that urgent request must be treated only at designated Express Centres, any other Passport office charging extra fee will not go unpunished, Nigerians deserves fair treatment and best services to justify what they paid for, but Nigerians must also submit right documents, follow due process, avoid touts to get the best from the service,” Babandede said.
Also speaking, the Minister of Interior observed with great concern the plight of Nigerians not getting the passport with ease and why the shortage must end.
He called on the NIS service providers for Passport production, Messrs Iris Smart Technology to ensure continuous supply and unhindered service delivery to Nigerians home and abroad, while charging the Passport officers to be up to their duties.
“No one will be spared in the the course of discharge of duty that failed to deliver satisfactorily in view of public trust and responsibility giving them and with respect to the value of the Passport as a security document, without which any Nigerian outside will suffer all manner of ill treatment and abuse in foreign countries. The country cannot afford to put Nigerians in the diaspora in dehumanising conditions just because of passport re-issue.
“We have introduced Nigerian Temporary Passport meant for the return of Nigerians back home who might have lost their passport or not having a valid passport to return home with, they can now return with a Temporary Passport meant for one way to be retrieved by NIS officers on arrival at the airport in Nigeria.
“Citizens integrity is as important as the Passport, hence Nigerians should respect the sanctity of the passport as a foremost national identity document without which the holder may not be respected wherever they are, the Passport holder is treated in view of the integrity of the Passport by other countries.”
Further in his speech titled “A new dawn in Passport Application Processing” the Minister said: “we have had several challenges in the past, it has become imperative to review our operations and rejig our system, in order to be able to offer excellent services to the public.”
Aregbesola directed that all Passport offices should have security officers embedded with body cameras to capture touts, and every activities in the Passport office during their operation to fight extortion, solicitations and any untoward act in the course of passport processing and acquisition.