The Minister of Interior, Dr. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, on Thursday inaugurated the newly completed centralised passport personalisation centre at the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) headquarters in Sauka, Abuja.
He said the facility will revolutionise passport production and eliminate delays for Nigerians at home and abroad.
Speaking after an inspection, the minister explained that the project — now fully completed — delivers on the administration’s pledge to centralise passport personalisation and production in line with global best practices.
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“Previously, Nigeria operated about 96 personalisation centres across the country and abroad, perhaps only comparable to China. For perspective, the United States has only two, the United Kingdom one, France three, Bangladesh one, and India one. Centralisation ensures higher quality, better control, and greater efficiency in passport production,” Tunji-Ojo said.
He described the old decentralised system as inefficient and prone to duplication, saying the unified model was designed to improve security and service delivery.
According to him, the new machines can produce up to 1,000 passports per hour, with a daily capacity of between 4,500 and 5,000, compared to the previous 250–300 daily per machine. Applicants with approved requests can now expect their passports to be printed within 24 hours.
The minister also announced that the reform had unified the Nigerian passport series into a single regime, eliminating duplication and strengthening the integrity of travel documents.
He further disclosed that Nigeria had fully migrated to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Public Key Directory (PKI-PKD), which authenticates travel documents globally and boosts the credibility of Nigerian passports.
Highlighting the impact of the reforms, Tunji-Ojo recalled that the administration inherited a backlog of 204,000 passports. “With this facility, the era of backlogs is over. Personalisation is now automated, eliminating the need for officers to work round the clock or manually correct errors,” he said.
He noted that this was the first time since the establishment of the NIS in 1963 that Nigeria would have a world-class centralised personalisation centre comparable to those in the U.S., U.K., France, Russia, India, and Bangladesh.
The minister commended President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for his support, as well as the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Interior, the Comptroller-General of Immigration, officers of the NIS, and technical partner IRIS SMART Technologies Limited, for their collaboration.
He assured Nigerians that the reform would drastically reduce waiting times. “Where people used to wait days or weeks, passports can now be processed in hours. We promised two weeks’ delivery; we are already working towards achieving one week or less,” Tunji-Ojo said.
On passport fees, he stressed that Nigerians were now getting value for money through faster, more secure, and reliable services.
Tunji-Ojo described the initiative as a major milestone for the Tinubu administration and a demonstration of its commitment to reform, efficiency, and improved service delivery.