Nigeria’s Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, demanded the swift clearance of over 200,000 international passports pending applications in two weeks.
The Minister gave the marching order to the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), during a meeting with top government officials, the Acting Comptroller General, Adepoju Carol, and the Managing Director of Iris Smart Technologies, a third-party company in charge of the production of passport booklets.
The order is coming as part of his promise to remove “bottlenecks in the acquisition of passports and other immigration documents.
The Minister noted that having to deal with about 200,000 backlogs calls for a national emergency.
He said: “As far as I am concerned, the issue of passport is a national emergency. I keep getting emails daily from Nigerians complaining. We cannot continue like that.
“It has become an embarrassment to His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. I represent him here as your minister. That embarrassment is mine now. I am not changing my words. I need the backlog cleared in two weeks.”
At the meeting, the Acting Comptroller General, Adepoju Carol, and Managing Director, Yinka Fisher, assured the Minister that everything will be done to ensure the expedited processing of these pending passport applications.
Adepoju said that though the number of enrolments as of Thursday morning spilled into 200,000 across the country, the agency had been able to secure enough booklets to clear the backlog.
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