Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, says the Nigerian Immigration Service can now deliver 4,000 to 5,000 passports in five hours for the first time in 62 years.

He disclosed this in a statement on Thursday after inspecting the newly built Centralised Passport Personalisation Centre at the NIS Headquarters in Abuja.

With the infrastructure, Tunji-Ojo said the Service could personalise over 1,000 passports in one hour, up from 250 to 300 passports daily.

“This morning (Thursday), alongside the Permanent Secretary, Dr Magdalene Ajani, and the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Kemi Nanna Nandap, I inspected the newly built Centralised Passport Personalisation Centre at the NIS headquarters in Abuja.

“With these strategic infrastructural investments, which did not cost a kobo to the government, the NIS can now personalise over 1,000 passports in one hour.

“To put it into perspective, long before this development, the service could only record an average of 250 to 300 passports daily. But today, under five work hours, the service can now deliver about 4,500 to 5,000 passports.

“As a major milestone, for the first time in 62 years of the service [NIS], this centralisation puts an end to the production of our passports at multiple centres across the world,” he stated.