Nigeria fails to print own passports two years after signing agreement

Two years after the federal government announced plans to domesticate the production of international passports, the plans have failed to see the light of day as policy flip-flop continues to stall the process.

The Federal Government of Nigeria had in 2019 through the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company — responsible for printing Nigeria’s currency and other important security documents signed MoU with IRIS Smart Technologies Limited to domesticate the production of international passports (e-passports).

The then minister of Interior, Abdulrahman Dambazau was said to have set up a committee of critical stakeholders that would ensure that the project is implemented.

The passport domestication, according to the minister, will ensure the “availability of passport booklets and there will be no more complaints of shortage or delivery beyond 48 hours after application.”

However, two years after, the failed project has caused Nigerians several opportunities as scarcity of passport booklets persists across Nigeria because the government owes its technical partners abroad huge debts running into millions of dollars.

Several Nigerians have missed out on opportunities such as scholarships, study, medicals, child delivery, business engagements, and investment opportunities, amongst others while waiting to obtain their passports.

Read Also: Nigerians applying for passport stranded as booklets shortage persists

BusinessDay’s checks show that the passport booklets are presently being produced‎ by Iris Smart Technology Nigeria (ISTL) through its parent company, Iris Corporation, based in Malaysia, but it has refused to supply the product due to the alleged huge debts.

Passports are made by passport-printing companies that ensure that they follow the standards set out by the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s document 9303 ‘Machine Readable Trave Documents’ (MRTD). Doc 9303 sets the standard for how passports should be made and what kinds of security features they should include in order to avoid an attack.

Passports are made with special paper bound together using secure technology. Due to the intricacies of the design and the high priority on security, makers of passports are often companies with well-advanced technology infrastructure and they can be in any country. It is also possible for the various components of a passport to be sourced from different companies or countries.

For example, A company in the Netherlands is responsible for the biometrics and security details inserted into Nigerian passports, while South Africa provides the ink used for the printings done in the passports.

A source at Nigeria Immigration Services who craved anonymity told BusinessDay that Nigeria has failed to print its own passport booklets as a result of policy flip-flop.

It would be recalled that in 2018 the Nigerian government, through the comptroller-general of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) had announced plans for the domestication of the production of the Nigerian e-passport. The local production was supposed to be championed by the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company Ltd. The first batch of the locally-made e-passports were expected to be released before the end of 2018. The plan did not materialise by the end of that year.

“They came out with the deceit that the current passport is being produced in Nigeria only to discover that with this current scarcity, it is still a lie. The cabal is still holding it firmly to print passports outside Nigeria,” the source said.

He alleged that some persons are benefiting from the production of passports outside Nigeria, so the interest of the masses is secondary compared to their own interest.

“Immigration is the organisation with the best ICT-driven services amongst other government agencies in Nigeria. So, there is nothing stopping Nigeria from producing its own passports. Little of the amount realised goes to federal coffers. We are just enriching the so-called partners,” the source said.

However, the printing of passports is now a more complex design that combines various layers of printing features laminated together, while the stitching also is upgraded to make it near impossible to emulate.

Hence, it is not uncommon for countries to outsource printing their passports to well-established organizations with very sophisticated technologies located anywhere around the world. China, for instance, outsources its passport printing to a German government unit known as Bundesdruckere. Gemalto, a Thales Group company based in France prints passports for countries like Sweden, Turkey, and the UK.

Apart from Nigeria, Iris Technologies also prints passports for Senegal and Solomon Islands.

BusinessDay checks show that Irish Technologies had requested that the ministry should be given an easy window to access forex directly from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which the Ministry was unable to facilitate, but rather was told to access forex through the parallel market, which the company said would be very expensive for it.

Troubled with huge debt profile difficulty to obtain foreign exchange, Irish Technologies was thrown into a dilemma. It was this bottleneck that led to the current scarcity, which inside sources projected would last long; unless there was an urgent intervention.

But experts insist that given that Nigeria abides by the provisions of the ICAO, it might as well be able to produce its passports given its abundant natural resources.

According to provision ICAO document 9303, the State issuing the MRTD also known as passports shall ensure that the premises in which the MRTD is printed, bound, personalized, and issued are appropriately secure and that staff employed therein have an appropriate security clearance.

Appropriate security shall also be provided for MRTDs in transit between facilities and from the facility to the MRTD’s holder.

ICAO also states that “States should control access to production and issuance facilities. Control should be zoned and the requirements for access to each zone should be commensurate with the value of the assets being protected.”

Tayo Ojuri, managing partner, Aglow Aviation Support Services Ltd told BusinessDay that plans are still on by NIS to domesticate production.

Ojuri said if the production of passports is localised, it will hasten production, create job opportunities, strengthen the nation’s sovereignty and save costs for the country.