The Federal Government has denied that there is a passport booklet shortage in Nigeria for returning Nigerians from the United Kingdom and the United States, that’s according to the News Agency of Nigeria.
Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola disclosed this in a statement issued by the Minister’s Media Adviser, Mr Sola Fasure, on Tuesday in Abuja.
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He added that the Federal Government has cleared all backlogs of passport applications.
Aregbesola said the ministry has made efforts to make passports available to Nigerians, citing that in 2021, it provided 1.3 million passports to Nigerians.
“As of today, there is no booklet shortage in Nigeria.
“As of the second quarter of 2022, the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has provided 645,000 passports out of the 750,000 applications received.
“To address the challenge of the backlog, we have sent 11,000 booklets to Ikoyi, 11,000 to Alausa and 8,000 to FESTAC centres in Lagos State.
“We have also sent sufficient booklets to all the centres nationwide to address this challenge,” the minister said.
He also revealed that 10,000 passport booklets have been deployed to the new Port Harcourt passport production centre to fast-track passport issuance in the area, adding that the centre would now be responsible for passport demands from Rivers, Cross River, Akwa Ibom and Bayelsa.
Aregbesola said that a six weeks and three weeks window for fresh application and renewal respectively had been provided after biometric data capture, within which the passport will be ready.
This article was updated 6 days ago
