32,462 Nigerians Request for Passports in Two Weeks 

According to the Nigeria Immigration Service, between January 8 and January 21, 2024, at least 32,462 people applied for international passports and uploaded their supporting documentation to the website.

Fifty percent of these passport applications—15,113 in total—have apparently been approved for biometric capture and production.

The Comptroller-General of Immigration Service, Caroline Adepoju, gave a summary of passport applications for the year 2024. She visited the passport offices in Ikoyi and Alausa on Tuesday to check on the implementation of the automated passport application process.

At the conclusion of the evaluation, Adepoju briefed the media, stating that 3,406 applicants who had paid had not yet scheduled an appointment, while 11,505 applications out of 32,462 were awaiting approval.

“50 percent of the total applications have been successfully approved for biometric capture, production and issuance; 35 percent await approval; 11 percent made payments but yet to book appointments; and only four percent of total applications were queried,” Adepou said.

“When queries are successfully answered, the applications return to the queue and are subsequently approved for biometric acquisition, production and issuance.”.

Adepoju, who noted that the introduction of the automation of passport applications was not new, clarified that further: “The major difference now is that supporting documents are now uploaded online. It is a research-based decision, and we have been recording successes.

“We have only recorded a four percent rejection of uploaded documents, which may be due to errors on the side of the applicant. But our help desk is operational 24/7.

“The Nigeria Immigration Service, our technical partners, service providers and other stakeholders worked together with the Minister of Interior, Dr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, to come up with this reform on the automation of passport process which has been in place since the inception of the issuance of enhanced e-passport in 2020.”