The Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, has given the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) two weeks to clear the over 200,000 pending passport applications before it.
The minister gave the order during a meeting with the acting comptroller-general of NIS, Caroline Adepoju, on Thursday in Abuja.
Yinka Fisher, the managing director of Iris Smart Technologies, the company in charge of producing Nigerian passport booklets, also attended the meeting.
The minister said the order fulfilled his promise to remove all bottlenecks in acquiring 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 this.
“It has become an embarrassment to President Bola 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,” the minister said.
Mr Tunji-Ojo said he received updates on passport enrolments daily.
“We will also ensure that our debts are cleared by November. My position remains that the delay in the process of obtaining the passport must end,” he stressed.
In their remarks, Ms Adepoju and Mr Fisher assured the minister of deploying necessary resources and measures to clear the backlog of passport applications.
Ms Adepoju disclosed that though the number of enrolments as of Thursday morning spills into 200,000 across the country, the NIS has secured enough booklets to clear the backlog.
Meanwhile, the minister has held a strategic meeting with the controller-general of the Federal Fire Service (FFS), Abdulganiyu Jaji, that of Nigeria Correctional Service (NCOs), Haliru Nababa, and the commandant-general, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Ahmed Audi.
He directed them to, within four weeks, develop a practical and executable roadmap that entails timelines, approaches, deliverables, and methodology.
(NAN)
