NIN linkage delaying passport production – Immigration boss

The Acting Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Immigration Service, Isa Jere Idris, says one of the challenges facing the NIS is the linkage of the National Identification Number (NIN) with the passport details.

Daily Trust on Sunday had published an investigative report on how officials in NIS passport offices in Lagos and Oyo states are in the habit of extorting Nigerians applying for passports.

Jere, in a statement on Sunday, noted that the challenge of verifying NIN before the issuance of passport plays a major role in the passport production line “and more often than not accounts for the delays.” He said: “There are instances where some applicants approach our platform with some conflicting data from their original records in our system and of course, such cases are often difficult to resolve quickly.”

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He said his office was working with the National Identity Management Commission to address the challenge.

He urged passport applicants to ensure proper documentation and plan their travels ahead of time to allow for easy processes. 

He reiterated the NIS’ commitment to the consequence management mechanism, assuring that any personnel found to be undermining the reform efforts would be punished. 

He said the introduction of the appointment system had reduced incidences of corruption and rowdiness as well as curtailed excesses of personnel and improved productivity.

He said: “The integration of the online appointment system with the existing online payment system, has restored orderliness to the passport offices to a large extent, as applicants can now make payment and choose the appointment date and time which is convenient for them, thereby reducing the time they would have spent at the passport offices as each passport office has been allocated with a daily appointment capacity which was arrived at, based on analysis.

“It is pertinent to note that between January and April 2022, a total of 478,650 booklets have been distributed across the globe, and I can assure you that more than 10,000 Nigerians have benefited from this initiative and it is still ongoing”. 

The immigration boss said the launch of the enhanced electronic passport in some parts of Nigeria and the United Kingdom had helped to ease the tension created by the backlogs.