Nigerians will soon be able to receive their passports within a week of application, the Federal Government has announced.
Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, said the improvement follows an upgrade of facilities at the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS). He gave the assurance after inspecting the newly completed Data Personalisation Centre at the Service’s headquarters in Abuja on Thursday.
Describing the development as a “game-changer” in passport production, the Minister explained that the centre would significantly cut processing time, allowing passports to be printed within 24 hours and delivered to applicants in seven days.
He noted that the old system limited output to about 250–300 passports per machine daily. With the new facility, however, production has jumped to about 1,000 passports every hour, giving the NIS the ability to produce up to 5,000 passports in a single workday.
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“This means applicants whose requests are approved can now expect their passports to be printed within 24 hours,” Tunji-Ojo said.
The Minister added that the centre represents the first time since the NIS was established in 1963 that Nigeria would operate a centralised passport personalisation hub of international standard, similar to those in countries like the US, UK, France, Russia, India, and Bangladesh.
According to him, the new model replaces the old arrangement of personalising passports across 96 centres at home and abroad, a system he described as “vulnerable and inefficient.”
Tunji-Ojo further revealed that when the current administration came in, it met a backlog of over 200,000 pending passport requests. With the automation now in place, he assured Nigerians that such delays will no longer occur.
“This project ensures that the era of backlogs is over. Officers no longer have to work around the clock to clear piles of applications. The system is now seamless, fast, and accountable,” he said.