Nigeria’s minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, has said that application process for an international passport in the country needs an urgent and strategic reform that will address bottlenecks applicants encounter during request.
Aregbesola, who spoke at ‘an evening with the Minister of Interior’ hosted by the Lagos Business School acknowledged that there are a lot of challenges involved in getting the Nigerian passport, which has intensified post-pandemic with the surge in the number of request.
“There is a growing demand for passport which reflects the demographic distribution of the population, Nigeria’s population is heavily skewed in favor of the youths who globally dominate migration, consequently the increasing growth rate is putting a lot of pressure on the processing structure and resources which has encouraged touting and other unscrupulous activities,” he said.
Aregbesola also said that the fault is not entirely from the immigration office as some applicants make errors during the registration process, giving information that is not accurate and corresponding with other registration platforms like NIN which will be rejected by the system
Consequently the minister said that efforts are ongoing to enhance the integrity of the Nigerian passport and also reform the passport application and issuing process. He revealed that the ministry is investing heavily in human and material resources towards effective screening and verification of breeder documents presented to support passport applications.
Read also: How harsh visa requirements spur fraud in Nigeria
“Following the reform, passport application will involve proof of citizenship, mandatory supply of permanent home address by applicants, National Identification Number (NIN) all of which will be vigorously verified before request is processed,” he said.
Therefore as part of the reforms, non-Nigerians will not able to obtain the passport while identity theft and impersonation is totally eliminated, furthermore, the Nigerian passport will be one of the most secured in the world equipped with tamper-proof security.
“We are working hard to cut off limitations and improve our services so we are doing things that other immigration services around the world and are ramping up for efficiency; now we are the first nation in the whole of Africa to engage in the continuous electronic upload of stolen and lost passports to avoid impersonation,” he said.
Following the implementation of the reform, the minister made an assurance that challenges associated with passport application and collection will be forgotten, adding that the reform exercise will be a continuous process.
Join BusinessDay whatsapp Channel, to stay up to date
Open In Whatsapp
