NIS announces 97,000 passports ready, and more being processed
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Up to 97,000 passport booklets are ready for collection across all states of the federal and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has announced.
NIS Public Relations Officer Tony Akuneme, a Comptroller of Immigration, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that Lagos alone has half of the uncollected passports.
He said half of the passport owners cannot be reached due to a lack of proper documentation because of third party involvement.
Akuneme explained the state of emergency declared in passport process is to draw media attention to help explain NIS service delivery because a lot of people do not know when their passports are waiting for collection.
“Some of them engaged agents to help them in their passport processing and these agents might be doing [that] for a lot of persons.
“They end up dropping wrong contacts and thereby making it difficult to reach out to the owners of these passports when they are ready for collection. This is a big challenge,” he lamented.
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Passport processing as core interest
Acting NIS Comptroller General Caroline Adepoju recently declared a state of emergency in passport issuance because, as Akuneme put it, the NIS discovered most applicants’ complaints involve human and technical factors as well as slow internet speed.
Akuneme said Adepoju does not want to leave anyone in doubt that passport processing is her core area of interest, per reporting by Vanguard.
“That’s how she came about that term of declaring a state of emergency in passport issues.
“When the acting CG assumed office, she made it very clear that she was going to focus on Passport reforms and staff welfare,” Akuneme added.
According to him, Lagos Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu is willing to collaborate with the NIS to expand passport service in the state.
“So, we went to Lagos State Governor to help in terms of giving us office space where we can set up front desk offices and immediately, the Governor was very positive in his response,” Akuneme recounted.
“Lagos is a tourism place and immigration have a key role to play in the mind of anybody visiting the state.
“It was a welcome development and you can see that the state of emergency that was declared is already yielding fruits as the Governor accepted CG’s request on land allocation to build staff quarters in Lagos.”
Impact of upsurge in passport demand
Akuneme stressed the NIS needs the media to help educate Nigerians that there are enough passport booklets.
“There are booklets issued that are not collected. It is ironical, we don’t have problem of booklet, we don’t have shortage of booklets.
“What we have had in the last one or two years is a sudden upsurge in the number of Nigerians wanting to travel. We felt it was also related to COVID-19.”
Akuneme pledged the result will be instant as more facilities will be put in place to curtail challenges in passport issuance across the country.
