By Oluwatosin Maliki
Mrs Wura-Ola Adepoju, the acting Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), announced that a total of 112,351 passport booklets are yet to be picked up by its owners across the 36 states of the federation, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Adepoju disclosed this on Thursday during a press briefing at the service headquarters in Abuja, disclosing that was the figure when checked on October 5.
Also, she noted that the service worked efficiently to clear all 204,332 passport application backlogs after the Minister of Interior Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo issued a two-week deadline to the service last month.
Adepoju added that a total of 91,981 passport booklets have been collected so far.
She therefore urged applicants to visit their respective application centres to collect the travel document.
She said, “I invite applicants who have applied for passports to come and pick them up without paying anything extra”.
According to her, the Service and its partners have upgraded their facilities to meet the demand for the document by Nigerians.
Furthermore, she said the NIS was working with its partners to make the passport application process fully automated, adding that when the process is completed, an applicant would only visit a passport office for biometric capturing.
Adepoju warned applicants to disregard pieces of information from touts, urging them to contact the Service via 08067761196 if any personnel demanded a bribe from them to get a passport.
The NIS boss emphasized that “Any personnel caught demanding bribes would be severely punished. The Minister has directed that we make a scapegoat of any corrupt official caught”.