NIS, Nigerian Immigration Service has refuted accusations discriminatory charges on its passports following the cries by Nigerians of long wait times for their passports and high charge.
It stated it is concurrently running two Passport regimes which are the electronic Passport and enhanced electronic Passport, stating the latter is an improvement on the older models.
This was disclosed on Thursday in a social media statement by Comptroller General Isah Jere Idris.
According to the Nigerian Immigration Service, its attention had been drawn to some stories about discriminatory Passport charges for Passport applicants in the North and South of the country.
“The Passports we issue are for Nigerians irrespective of where they live including those in the diaspora. What we do have are two Passport regimes that are running concurrently. They are the electronic Passport and enhanced electronic Passport”
“The latter is an improvement of the former. It is a product of the latest technology in Passport issuance. It has improved security features, a polycarbonate data page and comes in three categories of 32-page five-year validity (N25,000), 64-page five-year (N35000) and 64-page ten-year validity (N70000)”.
“It was unveiled sometime in 2019 & seven Passport Centres including Ikoyi, Abuja, Alausa, FESTAC, Port Harcourt. Kano & Gwagwalada were immediately migrated to the enhanced Passport regime then.” The Body stated.
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The electronic passport according to the NIS was the usual one we have been issuing since the introduction of ePassport in 2007. The fee chargeable ranges from N8750-N17800 depending on the age of the applicant and category of Passport.
The Service at this moment is steadily migrating all its passport Centers to the enhanced epassport regime.
It added, saying “To this effect, all the Centres in South-South, South-West & South-East including our Desks in the UK & USA have been fully migrated to the enhanced regime. In the work plan, Centres in the North-West, North-East, Canada & others are getting ready for migration to the enhanced Passport regime very soon.”
