The Federal Government has said it is turning around the entire passport application process by the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) to Six weeks, so as to ensure seamless, transparent, as well as according human dignity to applicants and fulfil citizenship integrity, in line with the mandate of the Ministry of Interior.
The Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola disclosed this on Thursday at a meeting with the Comptroller General of Immigration, Mohammad Babandede, Passport Officers, as well as the attaches in Nigeria Missions abroad, at the Immigration Headquartres, Sauka, Abuja. The Minister said that Security operatives will wear body cameras, to detect and report any form of solicitations, inflation, improper communications, extortion, diversion, hoarding and other corrupt practices in passport offices. He added that those caught will be dealt with according to law.
Highlights of the meeting include but not limited to the following:
i. Creation of special centres for expedited services. These special centres will run on public-private partnership basis. This has already taken off in Abuja and 10 more will be opened in coming weeks as more of such centres will be opened all over the country. Our goal is to have one in each local government, university campuses, institutions of higher learning and other places.
II. A timeline will be fixed for every application i.e., a collection date. This will be six weeks, comparable to what obtains in other countries. This is to allow for enough time to investigate and validate personal information supplied by the applicants. What we are driving at is the peace of mind that comes from assurance of certainty. If there are circumstances that will make the date to change, it will be communicated to the applicant one week before the collection date.
iii. Applicants will have no basis for further communication with officers, other than to complete their application process and leave the venue. The date for the collection of their passports or any challenge to the application, will be communicated to them. The technology for the efficient running of this system has been acquired and will be deployed.
iv. To publish the list of the backlog of applications that are ready which are yet to be collected by the owners. They will be required to go to the State commands to collect them.
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