The Federal Government has extended the commencement date of the new passport regime earlier scheduled for June 1, 2021 by one week, till June 8, 2021.
Minister of interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, who made this known in Abuja, said the period would be used to attend to applicants for collection of passport, clear all the remaining backlogs as well as improve systems automation for the takeoff of the new passport regime.
A statement signed by the assistant comptroller of immigration/public relations officer of the service, Amos Okpu, said that 230,500 applications have been cleared and the passports produced, while 43,350 others were yet to be collected.
The statement added that Passport Control Officers have been directed to continue to send out short message notifications for collection to all applicants who indicated functional contact details/numbers in their applications while efforts have been intensified to clear up the remaining applications in some centres.
According to the statement, “As part of efforts to ensure that applicants are duly notified and encouraged to go for collection of their Passports, the Comptroller General of Immigration, Muhammad Babandede further directed that details of all the passports that are yet to be collected be uploaded on our website www.immigration.gov.ng for the attention of the public.
The service is also deploying other media means to notify the public about this development. A huge number of applicants are already turning up to collect their Passports across Issuing Centres and this is causing some forms of congestion.”