FG: We’ll complete digitisation of passport processing in December

The Federal Government has said the full digitisation of Nigerian passport processes would be completed by December.

The Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, disclosed this when he featured on NAN Forum in Abuja on Saturday.

The minister said the full digitisation would completely eliminate any form of contact between passport applicants and immigration officers, noting that it would eliminate the inherent corruption in the system.

He stated that the project was one of the priorities of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.

“We are on it, and by December we will remove any manual processing of passports.

“Now, we still have some manual part, because files are still manually opened.

“By December, particularly in the busiest passport processing centres, there will be no manual segment of the passport processing, every part of it will be digitised,” Aregbesola said.

The minister, who stated that there was no shortage of passport booklets in the country, urged applicants to begin the processing of their passports at least six months before scheduled time of travel.

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“If you need a passport now, start the process very early, do not begin the processing efforts two weeks to your travelling.

“If you don’t, already you have created problems for yourself, because the system, after capturing, which is enrolment of your data, we harmonise it with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) data base,” he said.

Aregbesola further enjoined passport applicants to ensure their names and other information tally with their details on the National Identity data base, saying: “Every identity document must be the same to ease capturing.”

He added that wrong arrangement of names could create delay in the processing of passport.

“You must understand what it is. It is a presidential order that the new passport regime should be such that all data, everything about you as an individual must be the same and harmonised.

“What you have in the passport, which is the most secured identity document, must be the same with every other aspects of you, whether in the bank or at the national identity data base.

“When you come to us to register, after filling your form online, you come for data capturing, and what you do there is to harmonise what you have filed in your form and your bio-data as we advance.

“So when your name doesn’t tally with what we have, your data information is not the same on the relevant platforms, we will have some challenges with passport processing,” the minister stated.

The Star