The Federal Government has assured Nigerians that soon, passports will be issued within just seven days of application.
The Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, revealed these developments after inspecting the newly established Data Personalisation Centre on Thursday. He described the development as a transformative milestone in Nigeria’s passport issuance process.
Passport printing previously, could take weeks due to outdated equipment and a decentralized operation spread across 96 centres nationwide and abroad. Now, with state-of-the-art machines installed in Abuja, the NIS can produce up to 1,000 passports per hour. This means that between 4,500 and 5,000 travel documents can be printed each working day, a drastic increase from the former average of 250 to 300 per machine daily. The new system allows approved applicants to receive their passports within 24 hours of printing, with delivery occurring within a single week.
Minister Tunji-Ojo noted that this process ends reliance on the previously fragmented and inefficient model. The upgraded system, eradicates the backlog of more than 200,000 pending passport requests inherited from the former management, by automating many aspects and reducing manual intervention.
The government plans to maintain this high level of performance and continue investing in other modernization projects to ease citizens’ access to services.
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