The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) leadership has revealed that there is a significant backlog of 112,351 passports out of 204,332 that have been cleared nationwide, yet to be collected.
This announcement was made by the acting Comptroller-General of the NIS, Mrs. Caroline Adepoju Wura-Ola, during a press briefing in Abuja.
She appealed to applicants who have submitted their passport applications at various offices to promptly check their designated collection centers, emphasizing that this service comes at no additional cost.
Mrs. Wura-Ola further reiterated her commitment to ensuring the NIS provides exceptional services to Nigerians. She disclosed that, despite the substantial backlog, only 91,981 passports have been retrieved since the clearance of the applications, following directives from the Minister of Interior.
She, however, reiterated the service’s determination to remove all bottlenecks in passport application by putting measures such as increasing the number of passport production machines, as well as the involvement of staff in multiple shifts in passport production centers in place.
“I invite applicants who have applied for passports to come and pick them up without paying anything extra,” she said.
The NIS boss who however blamed the high demand for the travel document in the last few years on the ‘Japa syndrome’ in Nigeria, assured applicants that the two-week timeline set by the federal government for the processing of passports would be upheld.
While explaining that both the service and its partners have upgraded their facilities to meet the demand for the international travel document by Nigerians, she revealed that efforts by NIS to make the passport application process fully automated had been concluded by both service and its partners.
In her words, one the process is completed, applicants would only visit passport offices for biometric capturing, as they would have uploaded their photographs on our portal
Speaking on the corruption at the various passport offices, she said, “Corruption is opportunistic, it is made possible where there is exploitive holes, I can assure you that any staff of Nigeria immigration service that is caught in any form of malpractice before performing their statutory duties will be severely punished, I have the directives of the minister of Interior, we will make scape goat out of tyrant officials.”
Adepoju warned applicants to shun touts, and urged them to contact the Service via 08067761196 , should any personnel demand a bribe from them to get a passport.
“Any personnel caught demanding bribes would be severely punished. The Minister has directed that we make a scapegoat of any corrupt official caught,” she said.
She also, however, praised officers and men of the NIS for working day and night including weekends and public holidays to meet up with his directive.
