Nigeria’s new mega passport centre to address challenges— Minister

By Tobias Lengnan Dapam

The Minister of Interior, Dr. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, said the new Centralised Passport Personalisation Centre at the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) headquarters in Abuja, will address various challenges faced by Nigerians.

The Centre was a major move to redeem the current  administration’s pledge to modernise Nigeria’s passport ecosystem.

The initiative was targeted at streamlining passport production, reducing delays, and improving the overall efficiency of the issuance process.

The new move means that, Nigerians can now receive their passports within one week of application.

The minister who inspected the facility, described it as a “Game-changer” that will end delays and backlogs in passport production.

The centre, allows passports to be printed within 24 hours and delivered within seven days, aligning Nigeria with global best practices in countries like the Unutes States, United Kingdom, France and India.

“This centre allows passports to be printed within 24 hours and delivered within seven days. No Nigerian should have to wait endlessly for a document that defines their identity.”

According to Tunji-Ojo, the new facility is equipped with high-speed machines capable of personalising over 1,000 passports per hour, a significant upgrade from the previous daily average of 250–300. “This gives the service a potential output of 4,500 to 5,000 passports per day” the minister said.

Tunji-Ojo also announced the unification of Nigeria’s two passport series into a single regime, as well as the country’s full migration to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Public Key Directory, which he further said ensures international authentication of Nigerian passports.

“We have eliminated a backlog of over 200,000 passport applications. With this centralisation, we are not just improving speed, we’re ensuring quality and accountability.”

He further explained, “What we’ve done is to institutionalise excellence. This is not a favour; it is the right of every Nigerian to be served efficiently.”

The minister credited the success of the project to President Bola Tinubu’s commitment to public sector reform.

He assured that the centralisation will improve quality, accountability, and efficiency, reducing processing time from weeks to hours, adding that the reforms mark a major milestone in service delivery and national identity management.

“We are laying the foundation for a passport system Nigerians can be proud of. For us, it’s big win for this administration and for Nigerians.

“The era of backlogs and manual personalisation is over. Nigerians can now expect faster, more reliable service as we strengthen the integrity of our travel documents,” the Minister assured.

Highlighting key milestones of the reform programme, the minister listed the Migration to a single, uniform passport series, eliminating discrepancies between older versions, Nigeria’s full integration into the ICAO Public Key Directory (PKD), ensuring global authentication of Nigerian passports as well as the successful deployment of the new system across all passport issuing locations, including Nigerian missions abroad.

The Minister also commended IRIS Smart Technologies Ltd., the government’s technical partner, for enabling the project through a strategic partnership that required no direct draw from public coffers.

“This project underscores our resolve to build enduring institutions rather than systems dependent on individuals,” the Minister stated.

He further stated that the government had achieved efficiency like never before. “For the first time since the establishment of the Immigration Service in 1963, passport production can now be completed in record time. We can finally boast of a world-class system designed for world-class service.”