FG promises Nigerians passports within 7 days of application

The federal government has assured Nigerians that they will soon be able to obtain their passports within seven days of application, following a major upgrade of facilities at the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS).

Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, gave the assurance on Thursday after inspecting the newly completed Data Personalisation Centre at the NIS headquarters in Abuja, describing it as a “game-changer” in the country’s passport production process.

According to him, the facility will drastically cut processing time, enabling passports to be printed within 24 hours and delivered within a week.

While the old system could only process between 250 and 300 passports per machine daily, the minister disclosed that the new technology now produces about 1,000 passports per hour, giving the NIS capacity to deliver 4,500 to 5,000 passports in a normal workday.

“This means applicants whose requests are approved can now expect their passports to be printed within 24 hours,” Tunji-Ojo said.

He explained that the project marks the first time since the establishment of the NIS in 1963 that Nigeria will operate a centralised, world-class passport personalisation facility, comparable to those in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, India and Bangladesh.

The minister said the innovation replaces the old model in which passports were personalised in about 96 centres across Nigeria and abroad – an arrangement he described as “vulnerable and inefficient.”

Recalling that the administration inherited a backlog of over 200,000 applications, Tunji-Ojo stressed that the new automated system has eliminated such challenges by reducing human intervention and ensuring accountability.

“This project guarantees that the era of backlogs is over. Officers no longer have to work round the clock to clear applications. The process is now seamless, fast and efficient,” he said.