FG to open 10 passport processing centres to address scarcity, extortion

The Federal Government, on Thursday, disclosed several measures to tackle passport scarcity and extortion by Immigration officers and their partners at the passport offices in the country.

The FG declared that 10 distinct passport centres would be opened in the coming weeks to speed up booklets processing, stating that the objective was to have one in each local government, institutions of higher learning, university campuses, and other places.

The Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, who announced this in Abuja, after a meeting with the Comptroller-General of Immigration, Muhammad Babandede, and passport control officials, stated that covert agents putting on body cameras would also be positioned in all passport offices to uncover and report any form of demand, price increase, inappropriate communications, racketeering, redirection, hoarding and other dishonest practices.

Aregbesola maintained that no applicant would be made to pay any illegal fee.

He said, “We are going to embed security operatives – seen and unseen – in all our passport offices. They will wear body cameras. They will detect and report any form of solicitations, inflation, improper communications, extortion, diversion, hoarding and other corrupt practices.

“Those caught will be dealt with according to the law. An ombudsman will also be created for members of the public to receive complaints and reports on officers trying to deviate from prescribed guidelines and subversion of the process.”

In his comments, Babandede stated that 976,483 passports were given out to Nigerians home and abroad from January 2020 till date, while efforts were progressing to clear the backlog of 244,336.