250,000 passports awaiting collection in Nigeria – Aregbesola

By Tobias Lengnan Dapam

Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, yesterday lamented that about 250,000 passports were yet to be collected in the country.

Aregbesola, disclosed this at the unveiling of the enhanced electronic passport facility and commissioning of the passport production centre at the Enugu passport office.

The minister lamented that the owners of the passports may be pool of Nigerians complaining about their passports.

“Nevertheless, many applicants are not going to have their passports because of the errors in their applications, which delayed processing.

“They may not know because they applied through touts and other illegal channels,” he said.

The passport production centre, inaugurated three months after the commissioning of that of the Southwest in Ibadan, is to serve entire Southeastern Nigeria.

Aregbesola, who said the federal government was working to phase out the old electronic passports, said its issuance in the Southeast stopped on Thursday 3rd March 2022.

He said the introduction of the enhanced electronic passports was to eradicate scams, racketeering and all other forms of corruption in the application process of the document.

While warning Nigerians not to patronise touts and Nigeria Immigration Service officials, he said that all transactions must be done online.

Speaking at the event, the acting Comptroller General of NIS, Isah Jere Idris, said the new enhanced electronic passport is of a polycarbonate technology with additional 25 security features over the old electronic passport.

“It is the latest passport technology…It is difficult to forge as the improved security features will make any attempt not only impossible but also easily noticeable,” he said.

According to the NIS CG, Nigeria is the first country in Africa to migrate to the type of passport.

The enhanced electronic passport comes in three categories; the 32-page five-year validity, the 64-page five-year validity and the 64-page 10-year validity.