The Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, on Thursday, said the Nigerian Immigration Service has acquired the capacity to deliver between 4,000 and 5,000 passports in just five hours, describing it as a historic first in the agency’s 62-year existence.
Tunji-Ojo disclosed this after inspecting the newly built Centralised Passport Personalisation Centre at the NIS headquarters in Abuja, alongside the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Dr. Magdalene Ajani, and the Comptroller-General of Immigration, Kemi Nandap.
According to him, the new infrastructure has significantly increased the Service’s productivity, enabling it to personalise over 1,000 passports in an hour—an exponential leap from the previous average of 250 to 300 daily.
“With these strategic infrastructural investments, which did not cost a kobo to the government, the NIS can now personalise over 1,000 passports in one hour. To put it into perspective, long before this development, the Service could only record an average of 250 to 300 passports daily. But today, under five work hours, the Service can now deliver about 4,500 to 5,000 passports,” Tunji-Ojo said.
He described the development as a major milestone, stressing that the centralisation of passport production ends the era of multiple production centres across the world.
“This is the first time in 62 years of the Service that passport personalisation has been centralised. It is a game changer,” he added.
