Nigerian passport holders may get to apply and take delivery of the travel document at home soon – no longer encumbered by the often fraught process of in-person requirements and steps of doing so at passport processing centres.
Nigerians who are 18 years and above, and those applying for re-issue of their expired passports will be able to process and obtain the contactless passports while fresh applicants will need to appear and register their biometrics at a passport processing centre for their passports.
Dr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, the interior minister announced the new strategy at a stakeholders’ forum where the contactless passport processing App was unfolded in Abuja on Friday.
The contactless passport processing project, which is meant to eliminate human contact as much as possible, is being jointly handled by two Nigerian firms-Irish Smart Technology and New World, which have been test-running the process for the past nine months.
The minister explained that the new technology was adopted to reduce the burden usually encountered by Nigerians at home and abroad in their quest to obtain a Nigerian passport and save them from being exploited by middlemen, who create artificial hurdles to fleece them.
Tunji-Ojo disclosed that the App had been designed to take care of every requirement for the issuance of Nigerian passport and make it seamless for applicants to obtain the travelling document with record time.
The minister announced that with effect from April next year, passport production will be centralized in Nigeria as no immigration attaché in any foreign mission would be allowed to approve visa issuance.
The minister also disclosed that the President has approved the retention of 50 per cent of NIS internally generated revenue to be able to handle most of its operations and reduce the delay in passport processing and other vital services being rendered by the agency to Nigerians at home and abroad.
He also said that no fewer than 32 forward operational bases are being built across the country to enhance the operations of the NIS and strengthen national security.
The Comptroller-General of the NIS, Kemi Nandep, told the stakeholders that the move for contactless passport issuance was to reduce the inconvenience associated with physical processing and to strengthen the security of the Nigerian passport in line with international best practices.
