The Ikoyi Passport Office of the Nigerian Immigration Service ( NIS) in Lagos State says it has produced 38, 280 international passports from June to October, 2021.
The Passport Control Officer (PCO) of the office, Mr Ibrahim Liman, who is a Deputy Controller of Immigration, made the disclosure in an interview in Lagos on Monday.
According to the PCO, 29,984 of 32-page passport and 8,246 of 64-page passport were produced in the period under review.
Liman, while appreciating the officers who sacrificed extra time to enable the passport office meet the demands, said such commitment would not go unnoticed.
He said the officers worked 24 hours, all the days of the week to ensure the demand of the applicants were met.
“This passport office in its efforts to meet applicants demand, extended working days to include Saturdays and Sundays,” the PCO said.
Liman urged applicants to be patient anytime they applied for passports because NIS needed to do security check on individual applications before passports were released.
He explained that some challenges might hinder the timely release of some international passports to prospective applicants.
“This included disrupted National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) portal, inconsistent details submitted by some applicants.
“The NIS must send the details filed by applicant to NIMC to ensure they match the details on applicants National Identity Number (NIN).
“Many applicants submit Date of Birth that does not match the DOB of NIN. All the factors among others causes delay in passport production,” Liman said.
Liman said the NIS would not relent in its efforts to ensure that electricity did not disrupt the operations of the office adding that it got an inverter to enable the office operated efficiently.
“This office has also transferred the good gesture to NIMC within the premises,” he said.
