Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo has given the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) two weeks ultimatum to clear over 200,000 pending passports
The Minister gave the ultimatum during a meeting with top government officials, the Acting Comptroller General, Adepoju Carol, and the Managing Director of Iris Smart Technologies, a third-party company in charge of the production of passport booklets on Thursday.
The order comes in furtherance to his promise to remove “bottlenecks in the acquisition of passports and other immigration documents.
“As far as I am concerned, the issue of passport is a national emergency. I keep getting emails daily from Nigerians complaining. We cannot continue like that.
“It has become an embarrassment to His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. I represent him here as your minister. That embarrassment is mine now. I am not changing my words. I need the backlog cleared in two weeks.”
During the meeting, the Acting Comptroller General, Adepoju Carol, and Managing Director, Yinka Fisher, assured the Minister that all necessary resources and measures would be deployed to ensure the expedited processing of these pending passport applications.
Adepoju disclosed that though the number of enrolments as of Thursday morning spilled into 200,000 across the country, the agency had been able to secure enough booklets to clear the backlog.
