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The Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, has again assured Nigerians of a seamless and efficient passport process across the country to reduce difficulties faced by applicants in obtaining a travel document.
The minister gave the assurance while unveiling the enhanced electronic passport facility and commissioning of Central Passports Production centre in Enugu, to cater for passport needs of states in the South East.
In a communique, the minister said that despite the challenges and the recent public outcry over the alleged delay in passport issuance, over 250, 000 passports are yet to be collected across various offices.
Aregbesola said: “Our system makes room for six weeks for fresh passports application and three weeks for renewal.
This is to enable the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) to investigate and verify claims by applicants.
“It is advisable to travellers in need of the passport to begin the application process early, factoring our timeline. The maximum six weeks is reasonable and among the shortest application time in the world.”
The minister explained that due to public outcry that passports are not being issued on time, the government has taken a number of measures to address those complaints, but sadly after all the efforts, a lot of passports are still lying in the NIS passports offices because their owners are yet to pick them up.
“Nevertheless, many applicants are not going to have their passports because of the errors in their applications, which delayed processing,” he said
According to him, the applicants may not know because they applied through touts and other illegal channels, advising applicants to always use the online portal for passports application so that they are protected from corrupt officials and tout out to extort them under the guise of an express service.
Acting Comptroller General of Immigration, Isah Jere, said the new enhanced electronic passport is of a polycarbonate technology with additional 25 security features over the old electronic passport.
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