Of these applications, 15,113 have reportedly been approved for biometric capture and production, which is fifty per cent of the total application, according to Vanguard report.

The increase in passport applications has been attributed to the rush (japa) by Nigerians to leave the country for greener pasture.

The summary of passports applications for the year 2024 was provided by Caroline Adepoju, the comptroller-general of Immigration Service, who was on a visit to Ikoyi and Alausa passport offices, yesterday, to see how things were working, regarding the introduction of the automated passport application process.

Briefing journalists at the end of the assessment, the Immigration boss said of the 32,462 applications, 11,505 were awaiting approval, while 3,406 who made payment were yet to book appointments.

According to her, 1,438 applications were queried for various reasons.

Adepoju said: “50 per cent of the total applications have been successfully approved for biometric capture, production and issuance, 35 per cent awaits approval, 11 per cent made payments but yet to book appointments and only four per cent of total applications were queried.

“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.

“As of this morning (yesterday), we have only recorded four per cent 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.”

She explained that the automation of passport application was aimed, among other benefits, at easing the application process and reducing human interface which had been a major complaint from applicants who had been extorted by touts during application.

The Immigration boss called on Nigerians to be patient and allow the NIS to ensure the perfection of the process.

Trafficking in persons especially criminal recruitment and sponsorship of unsuspecting young girls and even sometimes male and female adults to foreign countries for financial exploitation in disguise of education, work and better life, is one of such illicit trades that has continued to boom in Nigeria.

Luck, however, ran out on some human trafficking syndicates recently when officers of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) attached to the recently-established Alimoso Passport Front Office in Lagos, apprehended scores of the human traffickers, who came to the office to obtain the Nigerian travel passports for some young girls they planned to traffic overseas for illicit activities.

For instance, the Nigeria Immigration Service officers, few weeks ago, successfully burst the plan by a suspected human trafficking ring to take two underage girls out of the country.

The alleged trafficker – a woman- had taken the girls to the passport office claiming they were her daughters, who needed the international passports to travel out of Nigeria.

But the eagle-eyed immigration officers detected that the woman’s age gap and the ages of the two girls did not match her claim that she gave birth to the teenage girls.

On further investigation, the suspect admitted that the girls were recruited for trafficking abroad, for commercial exploitation.

Sources at the NIS revealed that many suspected human traffickers had been apprehended at the Alimoso Passport Front Office since it commenced operation on January 30, this year.

According to the sources, the traffickers might have wrongly assumed that they could have their way easily because the front office was new.

“It seems traffickers think because this passport office is new, they will have it easy. It is not possible here as we scrutinise every form and ensure due diligence.

“We have had instances where people wanted to procure passports for adopted children for the purpose of taking them overseas. Those who have legal documents of adoption were directed to Abuja because only the CGI (Comptroller General of Immigration) has the final say on such issues,” a senior officer, who begged not to be mentioned, said.

The officer added, “For those who did illegal adoptions, they came posing that the babies were their biological kids but were uncovered by our diligent officers. When certain documents were required from them, some of them didn’t come back.”

Confirming the arrest of the latest suspected trafficker, the Passport Control Officer (PCO), Mrs. Ayoola Malaolu, said several human traffickers, who came to the Alimoso NIS Passport Front Office, had been apprehended upon being detected that they came to obtain the Nigerian travel passports for unlawful purposes.

She commended the officers for their professionalism and dedication to duty, assuring that her team would continue to work professionally and stop traffickers and others with criminal intentions from getting travel documents with which they can perpetrate their evil work.

Mrs. Malaolu appealed to applicants for passports, whether fresh or reissue, to always go through the online application process and payment platform, as well as to exercise patience and follow the queue, assuring that they would be courteously attended to.

Isah Jere Idris, Comptroller General of Immigration of the Nigeria Immigration Service, while announcing the deployment of the top senior officers, said Lagos topped the list of uncollected passports with about 40,000 produced passports yet to be collected by the applicants.

He said the other zones with higher number of uncollected passports where the ACGs were deployed, were the Benin and Port Harcourt Zonal Offices of the Immigration to ramp up the collection of the produced passports.

CGI Idris added that Zonal Comptrollers and State Comptrollers had also been directed to liaise with Passport Controllers in their respective areas of responsibility to ensure speedy collection of the produced passports by the applicants.

He also said the mandate of the senior officers was to ensure that everything possible was done to locate the applicants whose passports were among the 100,000 produced passports that have not been collected by the prospective holders.

The immigration boss, while describing as worrisome the failure of applicants to come forward to collect their passports months after they were, called on those that applied for the Nigerian travel passports since January last year, and those that applied within the six weeks’ passport processing timeline to visit the Passport Offices where they did their biometric capture for collection of their produced passports.

While assuring that Nigeria Immigration Service personnel were always working round the clock to ensure speedy processing of application and production of passports to meet the needs of the travelling public, the CGI stated that passport production was a continuous exercise as it was not limited to any particular time or season of the year.

To further assist the applicants, he enjoined passport applicants to always check their application status by using any of the numerous channels which the NIS has provided including the Passport Application Tracking (PATs) solution, notice boards at the Passport Offices and the NIS website for regular updates.

On what could have been responsible for the high number of unclaimed produced passports, CGI Idris blamed the applicants many of whom he said supplied incorrect contact details such as inactive telephone numbers, contact addresses and e-mail addresses, thereby making it difficult for NIS personnel at the Passport Offices to reach them for the collection of their passports.

He also disclosed that it had come to the notice of the NIS that some applicants were still patronising third parties to fill and submit applications on their behalf, noting that in many cases incorrect information about the applicants was supplied. In some cases the third parties used their own contact details while majority of the applicants neither verified nor double-checked such information supplied.

He appealed to passport applicants to stop the practising of going through third parties, warning that they could be at security risks including breach of their personal data and other fraudulent activities.

“It is like someone wants to travel and sends a third party to buy a ticket from the airline. On filling out the particulars of the intending traveler, the person sent to buy the ticket filled his or her telephone number and e-mail address. So, few minutes to flight time, the airline sends SMS to all intending passengers notifying them the flight has been cancelled or rescheduled. The passenger unknowingly rushes to the airport only to discover change in flight time. Who is to blame? Nigerians should be aware that the Nigerian passport is more than a travelling document; it is a personal identity and a personal security asset of the holder, and sanctity of the process of obtaining it must be protected,” the NIS boss advised.

It would be recalled that the Federal Ministry of Interior and NIS recently rolled out some initiatives aimed at making obtaining and renewing the Nigerian international passport quicker and less cumbersome including a six-week timeframe to apply and get the new enhanced e-Passport for fresh applicants and three weeks for reissue.

Also, Diaspora Fast Track Programme was launched recently that made it possible for holders of expired Nigerian passports in the Diaspora to board at their countries of residence and be admitted into Nigeria with their expired passports, without any inhibition.

A circular had also been sent out to consular offices, local and international airlines, and Nigeria Immigration Service Comptrollers at the nation’s airports to allow Nigerians in the Diaspora with expired Nigerian passports to be allowed free passage whenever they wanted to come to Nigeria.

Furthermore, a special desk called Diaspora Desk was also set up at International Airports in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt to provide expeditious immigration services to Nigerians in the Diaspora especially the application for the renewal of their expired passports immediately upon arrival in Nigeria.

The Fast Track Programme has enabled lot of Nigerians in the Diaspora with expired passports, who came home for the year-end holidays, to renew their expired passports under two weeks at no extra fee, before returning to their countries of residence.

As part of the Diaspora Fast Track Programme, the Passport Offices also commenced Saturday operation for the processing and production of passports and this significantly made it possible for many Nigerians in the Diaspora to renew their expired Nigerian passports as quickly as possible.

This is even as the NIS has increased the number of implemented reforms, the latest being the launch of Diaspora fastrack special service that enables the Service to respond urgently to the special needs of Nigerians who live abroad and coming back to the country.

Anthony Akuneme, Public Relations Officer of the NIS, said Isah Jere Idris, the Comptroller General of Immigration, had written to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, all Heads of Foreign Missions, all Immigration Attaches, all Airport Comptrollers and all airlines – local and international to convey Federal Government’s approval to the aforementioned to facilitate passages for Nigerians living in foreign countries whose passports have expired, to return to the country unhindered.

The CGI in a circular referenced NIS/CHI/FD/208/20 and dated 9th December, 2022, signed on his behalf by the Special Assistant to the CGI (Foreign Desk), B.M. Lawal, a Deputy Comptroller of Immigration, read thus:

‘‘I am directed to respectively present the compliments of the Comptroller General of Nigeria Immigration Service and notify all relevant authorities that the Federal Government of Nigeria has approved that Nigerians returning home can be admitted into the country with their expired Nigerian passports.

‘‘Consequently, all airlines are requested to allow holders of expired Nigerian passports to board without let or hindrance.

‘‘In addition, all Nigerian Diplomatic Missions abroad are kindly requested to circulate this information to airline operators and border authorities of host countries for their necessary action.’’

Giving further details on the series of reforms in the passport and immigration sector, Akuneme said the special fastrack service for Nigerians in the Diaspora entailed the setting up of Diaspora Desks at all the international airports in the country for the exclusive use of returnee Nigerians to renew their expired Nigerian international passports and access any other immigration services without any stress upon their arrival in the country.

He said the dedicated service was already ongoing and it would be available from 12th of December 2022 to 31st of January 2023, adding that it was part of the confidence-building mechanism put in place by the Federal Government to ensure that citizens who were willing to return to the country were not denied their right to travel.

Nigerians can complete the diaspora fast track passport renewal through 3 steps: First is to register online through the passport application portal and apply online, armed with their NIN.

The personal information in the passport application must match the information on the NIN and vice versa.

Second is to visit the diaspora desk at any of the International Airports upon arrival, present their details and collect a letter to their preferred Passport Office for biometrics capturing.

Third step is to visit their preferred passport office with the letter between Monday and Wednesday to complete the process. The passport will be produced in 2 weeks.

On the implementation of the various components of the passport administration reforms, Akuneme said the milestones recorded so far include the successful rollout of the new enhanced e-Passport with Polycarbonate Data Page and 25 security features, making the Nigerian international passport more respected globally.

The opening of centralised passport production centres in Ibadan and Enugu, which has helped to uptake availability of passport booklets is another accomplishment.

Other accomplishments of the reforms are improved online passport application process (portal and timelines); improved secured (online) payment solutions that eliminate the activities of middlemen, touts, racketeers and fraudsters; online appointment-based enrolment for passport after payment; Passport Application Tracking (PATs) solution; and opening of passport front offices in Alimosho (Lagos State), Daura (Katsina State), Oyo (Oyo State), and Zaria (Kaduna State).

Akuneme listed others as: sensitisation of operation irregularities at passport centres including the arrest and disciplinary actions on errant officials; establishment of passport contact centres and digital channels; instituting a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for passport processing; policy on admittance of Nigerians with expired passports; sequential passport application processing; and the launch of fastrack diaspora service.