Immigration clearing up backlog cause by pandemic lockdown
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Immigration personnel are working extra hours to clear up the backlog of passport issuance that has built up since the lockdown in the height of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS Comptroller General Isah Jere gave the assurance at the NIS headquarters in Abuja, where he announced measures being taken to hasten passport application process.
Jere, represented NIS Public Relations Officer Tony Akuneme, said he understands the frustration over the delay in getting travel documents but stressed personnel are putting in more effort to reduce waiting time.
“What we are facing is a deluge, an upsurge in the number of applicants and it’s actually overstretching our facilities as well.
“Those at the passport unit are working beyond normal hours without being compensated.
“They literally do two shifts without being paid for it just to make Nigerians happy and to satisfy our applicants”, Jere said.
He explained the upsurge in demand for passports in the past few months is connected with post pandemic upsurge in migration across the world.
“Currently, it takes an average of two years to get a facility that you applied for since COVID-19 started in some parts of the country. Before now, it took one to two months to get your document in Nigeria.
“So, I want Nigerians to know that acquiring travel documents has become a little bit more challenging because COVID-19 has put pressure on the travelling populace worldwide.
“For the period of 2020, all the applicants for Nigerian passports could not be attended to because we didn’t have physical contact with anybody.
“Most of our facilities were shut down during the lockdown, so all the applications that were built for 2020 were naturally moved over to 2021 and the ones for 2021 were moved over to 2022.”
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No shortage of passports
“So what we have presently is not necessarily a shortage of passports, it is an increase in the number of applicants, and it’s the same facilities that we had that we still have.
“We didn’t recruit new staff, we didn’t open new branches,” Jere said, according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), as reported by The Guardian.
Jere spoke of measures such as online application booking that have helped stabilise the process and ensure crowd control.
“What that means is that you don’t just show up for your passport anymore, you have to go online and apply.
“When you do that, the system gives you a date. So if the system gives you a bit of next month for instance, are you going to say Immigration is delaying you?
“The system is working on the number of people that have applied, and remember, like I said, the number of applications has doubled or even tripled.
“This is a global factor that is not peculiar to Nigeria alone.”
He cautioned against offering bribe to Immigration officers for passport processing, saying anyone caught will be prosecuted.
“It is an offence to give bribes to our men, that is why we introduced an online application in order to discourage direct contact with our men to avoid bribing them.”