Nigerians to Enjoy Contactless Passport Processing Soon
Abuja, Nigeria – Nigerians will soon be able to process and receive their passports from home, eliminating the need for in-person visits to passport processing centers.
This new feature will be available exclusively to Nigerians aged 18 and older, as well as those seeking to renew expired passports. Fresh applicants will still be required to visit a passport processing center to have their biometrics recorded.
The announcement was made by the Minister of Interior, Dr. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, at a stakeholders’ forum held in Abuja on Friday, where the details of the contactless passport processing app were revealed. According to sources from Saturday Vanguard, the project aims to minimize human interaction and has been developed in collaboration with two Nigerian companies, Irish Smart Technology and New World, which have been piloting the system for the past nine months.
Dr. Tunji-Ojo stated that this initiative is designed to alleviate the challenges many Nigerians face both domestically and internationally when obtaining a passport and to protect applicants from middlemen who often create unnecessary obstacles for financial gain. The app is intended to streamline the passport issuance process, making it more efficient for users.
In a further development, Dr. Tunji-Ojo announced that starting in April next year, all passport production will be centralized within Nigeria. This policy means that immigration attachés at foreign missions will no longer have authority over visa approvals.
Additionally, the Minister revealed that the President had approved the retention of 50 percent of the Nigeria Immigration Service’s (NIS) internally generated revenue, which will support the agency’s operations and help reduce delays in passport processing and other essential services provided to Nigerians, both at home and abroad.
To bolster NIS operations and enhance national security, a network of 32 forward operational bases is currently under construction across Nigeria. The Comptroller-General of the NIS, Mrs. Kemi Nandep, emphasized that the shift to contactless passport issuance aims to minimize the inconveniences linked with physical processing and align the security of Nigerian passports with global best practices.
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