For thousands of Nigerians currently experiencing difficulty in their attempt to acquire international passport, their frustration is far from over as more than five weeks after President Muhammadu Buhari issued a directive for local production of all Nigerian e-passports and related documentation, the directive has failed to kick off.
President Buhari had on July 11 issued a directive to the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company (NSPMC) to take over the production and personalisation of all Nigerian e-passports and related documentation.
A source within the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), however, told BusinessDay that the service is currently facing shortage of passport booklets as domestic production is yet to commence.
The new e-passports which were flagged off two months ago are currently in short supply, with a few copies only being issued in Ikoyi passport office and Abuja, the headquarters, making it very difficult for applicants who stay outside Lagos and Abuja to access the new passports.
“Immigration is finding it difficult to issue passports. The old passport has a different contractor who is still being owed a lot of money and he is no longer supplying the old ones. Production of the new passport is given to an indigenous company who must sign some agreements with the old producers for seamless synchronisation but these have not taken effect,” the source said.
The source further disclosed that unless the Federal Government pays off its debts to the old contractors, it may be difficult to address the current passport scarcity which may get out of hand in a few weeks as a result of excess backlogs.
Another source close to NIS told BusinessDay that the service is playing politics with the new passport and only offering people who are willing to pay exorbitant amount against the official amount displayed on the website.
“After you make your payment online and you get to Ikoyi office to process the new passport, they tell you the passports are not available but when you show you are desperate to get the passport, they ask you to top up the money for you to get the passport out in time,” said the source who craved anonymity.
But Sunday James, NIS spokesperson, told BusinessDay that the service was not playing politics with the passports issuance.
“We flag off passports because it is mandated to be done. We are not playing politics with passports but we are carrying out our mandate as a service. We flagged off at headquarters and Ikoyi. Next one is Alausa, Kano and London. Directive has been given by the president for domestication of passport production in Nigeria, it has to be carried out,” James said.
“What matters most is that there is an agreement that must be signed. There is still an MOU to be signed. The old and the new companies in charge of passport production must come to agreement. Every party has to bring what they have on ground,” he said.
The NIS had earlier announced that the old passports would run concurrently with the new ones until the old passports are gradually phased out.
BusinessDay had earlier reported that before the directive by the Federal Government, Nigeria through the NIS paid over N24 billion to Malaysia, Netherlands and South Africa for production of its international passports. The figure was arrived at by multiplying the total number of passports issued in a year with the cost of production of each booklet.
According to BusinessDay calculations, passport offices across Nigeria issue nothing less than 4,800 passports daily. Further calculations show that for five working days in a year, passport offices across Nigeria issue 1,248,000 passports. Government spends about N19,500 for the production of one passport. This implies that the country paid N24,336,000,000 annually to Malaysia, Netherlands and South Africa to produce the booklets.
The passport booklets were being produced by Iris Smart Technology Nigeria (ISTL) through its parent company, Iris Corporation, based in Malaysia. A company in Netherlands was responsible for the biometrics and security details inserted into the passports, while South Africa provided the ink used for the printings done in the passports.
The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) generated N39.06 billion in 2018, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Sources close to NIS said the government can realise more than this amount if it produces passports locally.
NSPMC, the company now saddled with the responsibility of passports production, was established in 1963, with the mandate of producing the nation’s currency notes and coins for the Central Bank of Nigeria as well as security documents for Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government, banks and other blue-chip companies.
