32,462 Nigerians apply for passports in two weeks

Since the beginning of 2024, at least 32,462 persons have applied for international passports and uploaded their documents to the Nigeria Immigration Service website between January 8 and 21, 2024, the service has revealed.

Of these passport applications, 15,113 have reportedly been approved for biometric capture and production, which is fifty percent of the total application.

The summary of passport applications for the year 2024 was provided by Caroline Adepoju, Comptroller-General of Immigration Service. She was on a visit to Ikoyi and Alausa passport offices on Tuesday to see how things were working, regarding the introduction of the automated
passport application process.

Adepoju briefed journalists at the end of the assessment where she said that out of the 32,462 applications, 11,505 were awaiting approval, while 3,406 who made payment were yet to book appointments.

According to her, 1,438 applications were queried for various reasons.

The Immigration boss said: “50 percent of the total applications have been successfully approved for biometric capture, production and issuance, 35 percent awaits approval, 11 percent made payments but yet to book appointments and only four percent of total applications were queried.

“When queries are successfully answered, the applications return to the queue and are subsequently approved for biometric acquisition, production and issuance”.

Adepoju noted that the introduction of the automation of passport applications was not new, she further clarified that: “The major difference now is that supporting documents are now uploaded online. It is a research-based decision and we have been recording successes.

“As of this morning (Tuesday), we have only recorded four percent rejection of uploaded documents which may be due to errors on the side of the applicant. But our help desk is operational 24/7.

“The Nigeria Immigration Service, our technical partners, service providers and other stakeholders worked together with the Minister of Interior, Dr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, to come up with this reform on the automation of passport.”