How Protracted Scarcity of Booklets Paralysed Activities at Passport Offices Nationwide

Chinedu Eze

For over a month and one week, there has been scarcity of passport booklets at all the passport offices of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) nationwide.

This is as the federal government has approved the increase of the price of the document by September 1, 2024.

THISDAY investigation revealed that the situation has created uncertainty and thousands of applicants both in Nigeria and overseas, are waiting for the agency to replenish its stock. So far, the NIS has not explained why the document is scarce.

This is contrary to the promise made by the Minister of Interior, Dr. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, that such problem would not happen again and that by end of June this year, applicants would be getting their passports in their homes from strategic passport offices in the country and abroad.

Informed source indicated that over 150, 000 Nigerians apply for passports everyday both in the country and in the Diaspora. So, for the past five weeks, about 5, 250, 000 applicants may have applied for passport and have been waiting to be attended to at different passport offices and at the Nigerian embassies overseas.

Informed source told THISDAY that the scarcity of the document may have to do with the high demand for passport due to the huge number of Nigerians that are leaving the country.

This could be a factor when it is considered that between 2019 and 2023, Nigeria issued about 4.5 million passport copies, but with the current upsurge in the number of applicants, NIS may not have been able to meet the demand.

“The demand rate of the passport is very high because people are leaving the country in droves. This is a simple principle that when the economy is not good emigration is very high but when it improves people return to their country. That is exactly what is playing out. Since last year demand for passport has almost doubled.

“We were promised that the booklets would be available last Friday but since then we have not heard anything. So, as we are talking now, production is not taking place at any of the passport offices in the country. The Minister has made a lot of improvement in the system and changes are taking place but these changes come to nothing when the passport booklet is not available,” a senior Immigration official told THISDAY.

Again, THISDAY contacted the spokesman of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Kenneth Udo, who did not pick the call made to him nor responded to the WhatsApp message sent to him.

Udo later announced on Wednesday that from September I, 2024, a 32-page Passport booklet with 5-year validity currently charged at N35,000.00 will be N50,000.00 only; while a 64-page Passport booklet with 10-year validity which is N70,000.00 will be N100,000.00 only.

Earlier this year, Tunji-Ojo hinted that the company printing the passport booklet would be changed and the country would directly print the document but till now, the company, IRIS Smart Technology is still producing the booklet.

Tunji-Ojo had said that the federal government had completed the establishment of its data base, to enable Nigeria start producing the booklets.

There has been earlier complaint that the company may be responsible for the hiccups in the production of the booklets but the minister at various events that he spoke with the media, never suggested that the company was not competent. Rather, he emphasised that Nigeria should own the ability to produce the document by itself.

In December 2021, one of Nigeria’s newspapers, reported that there was protracted scarcity of passports and attributed it to corruption in the process because government began to collaborate with the company under a Public, Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement that was  ‘poorly signed’.

“The corruption-laden, unpatriotic and self-serving Public Private Partnership e-passport production agreement between the Ministry of Interior and Smart Technology Nigeria Limited, whose parent company, IRIS Corporation, is based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Since 2003 when government entered into this controversial PPP arrangement with this company, the country’s international passport has been printed in Malaysia, and all the vital information of Nigerian passport owners are warehoused in the Asian country, with all the national security implications that it entails,” the paper reported.

One of the reasons advanced by the minister why the country has delayed in fully taking over the production of the booklets was because the ministry had to build a new data system, which it had completed and it was one of the best in the world.

The minister made this known in May, but up till August, the country still depends on IRIS Smart Technology for the production of the booklet.

“We had to build a data center from scratch, to be able to keep the integrity of our data and our national security intact. It is very key. It is more important to me than what anybody might feel. So it is about national security. And I can assure you, we have completed the data center now, which is one of the biggest we have in Nigeria.  It is a tier 4, 1.4 pentabyte data center. It is comparable with anyone you can find anywhere in the world. The command and control center that we have built in Abuja, even IATA (International Air Transport Association), came to Nigeria from its headquarter in Canada and confirmed that this is comparable to even the best in the world.” Tunji-Ojo said earlier in the year.

THISDAY also learnt that last month the scarcity of passports prompted Nigerian nationals living in the United Kingdom to storm the Nigerian high commission in London on July 31, to protest the long delay in issuing their international passports.

The angry protesters were heard lamenting how the Nigerian agencies neglected them for more than six months after they applied for the passport.

“Two weeks turned to six months. Enough is enough. No more delay,” one of the protesters had said.

They recalled that in December 2023, Nigeria’s Minister of Interior, Tunji-Ojo, assured that passports would be issued within two weeks to applicantsHe also promised to eliminate long queues by enabling online registration, with in-person visits required only for biometric capture and passport collection.

The protesters also rejected the extra fast track fee of $300 for any applicant who wanted faster process to obtain international passport. The protest prompted the Minister to quickly investigate the source of the directive and also stopped it forthwith.

THISDAY also learnt that one of the reasons why the production of the passport would change hand was because the country wants a more quality passport, disclosing that currently the quality of Nigerian passport is the least among African countries, but Nigerian passport has the most enhanced security features that are rivaled by a few in the world.

“The texture of our passport is thick, especially the date page, but it should be made softer while still retaining enhanced security features. That is why our passport is rated poorly in terms of quality but it has the best security features on the continent and one of the best globally,” said Immigration official who spoke to THISDAY.

The official also told THISDAY that despite the hiccups in the process of obtaining passports, Nigerians in Diaspora still seek to renew their Nigerian passports.

“In the US, UK, Canada and other top nations, Nigerian nationals still go to the Nigerian High Commission with their children to renew their passports. This shows that they are still proud of Nigeria as their nationality,” he said.