Nigeria’s Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, has assured Nigerians living abroad that they no longer need to travel home to acquire their international passports.
During a press briefing in Abuja on Friday, the Minister stated that the challenges faced by diaspora Nigerians who had to journey from one country to another due to passport scarcity are now resolved. He announced that the government plans to streamline the passport application process by October.
Tunji-Ojo emphasized that all passport backlogs have been addressed and that there are currently about 80,000 passports in reserve. This reserve includes both 32-page and 70-page passports. He assured that the federal government has improved passport services for both local and international applicants.
Furthermore, the Minister revealed that the government will activate the Automated Application System by October, allowing Nigerians worldwide to apply for and receive their passports more conveniently.
According to him, “Henceforth Nigerians in the diaspora would not need to travel from one country to another to obtained Passports, saying the era of wasting working hours, resources and risking their lives on long journey is gone.
“We are going to do a pre-launch of this automated systems very soon. And by October they will be fully operational. We have a situation in London where we have 16,000 Nigerians applying for Passports, and the capacity of our systems in the Embassy is about 200.
“But now that we have this systems in place, Nigerians would not have to embark on different journeys across the world for Passport acquisition.”
The minister however justified the recent increase in the passport fee, saying it was necessary because of the exchange rate of the Naira to the Dollar.
(PUNCH)
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