Nigeria Immigration Service has placed an embargo on capturing and issuance of passports to applicants from today May 18th till the end of May 2021.
Comptroller General of Immigration, Muhammed Babandede made the announcement on Tuesday during a press briefing in Abuja.
He said the decision is to enable the service to clear its backlog, noting that it will no longer collect fresh applications until the backlogs are cleared.
He added that NIS would not receive fresh applications until the backlogs had been cleared.
Therefore, there will be no fresh trgistrstion for passports in control offices are from Tuesday, till May 31.
He noted that payments for passports will be done online when the portal is opened which will be June.
Many Nigerians have been highly critical of the government over its handling of registration for passports.
Some have to wait for four months to get their passports after registration, blaming the problem on scarcity of booklets.
Earlier, the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola given a six weeks timeline for passport collection.
He said this will be six weeks which is meant to allow for enough time to investigate, verify and validate personal information supplied by the applicants.
The minister stated;
What we are driving at is the peace of mind that comes from the assurance of certainty. If there are circumstances that will make the date to change, it will be communicated to the applicant one week before the collection date.
Aregbesola noted that applicants will have no basis for further communication with officers, other than to complete their application process and leave the venue.
The date for the collection of their passports or any challenge to the application will be communicated to them.
The Minister stressed;
The technology for the efficient running of this system has been acquired and will be deployed. We are publishing on our website the list of the backlog of passports that are ready which are yet to be collected by the owners. They will be required to go to the state commands to collect them.
With these changes, it is my firm belief that we will arrive at a new dawn in passport application processing.
Below is the breakdown of the current backlog;
Local: 71, 644
Enhanced: 46,814
Foreign : 17,906
