‘112,351 passport booklets yet to be collected by applicants’  –Immigration boss

The Acting Comptroller General of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Wura-Ola Adepoju, has said 112,351 passport booklets are yet to be collected by applicants across the 36 states of the federation and the FCT.

Adepoju disclosed this during a press briefing at the service headquarters on Thursday in Abuja.

According to Adepoju, the figure was as of October 5, 2023.

She said the service had cleared all the 204,332 passport application backlogs after the Minister of Interior Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo’s two-week deadline to the service.

“91,981 passport booklets had been collected so far. There are 112,351 others not yet collected,” she said.

The NIS boss called on applicants to go to their respective application centres to collect the travel document.

Last month, in an interview on Channels TV Politics Today, Tunji-Ojo said that there was no excuse for passport delays in Nigeria.

He said the scarcity and delay in issuing new passports and renewing old ones are fueling corruption in the sector.

He stated that after the backlogs are cleared, no Nigerian should have to wait more than two weeks for a passport.