Nigeria Looks to Improve Document Issuing Processes

ID & Secure Document News™ has had occasion to report on Nigeria’s Ministry of Interior in recent times on a variety of, not always positive, policy initiatives (see IDN August 2020 and July 2022).

But now, Rauf Aregbesola, head of the ministry, has pledged to sanitise the performance of professional service providers by improving the processing of visas, passports, marriages and citizenship applications.

The minister made the promise during a Quarterly Review Meeting with some consultant-special service providers engaged by the ministry at the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) headquarters. The minister reiterated the importance of performance review, adding that the meeting had helped in addressing challenges experienced by service providers and serving as a platform to identify problems that often contributed to inefficient service delivery.

He denounced passport procedure racketeering, which had been allowed to happen with the connivance of unscrupulous officials, urging them to stop or be prepared to face dire consequences. The minister identified human factors as being responsible for the artificial scarcity of passport booklets in passport offices across the country.

He commended the service providers for being worthy partners in attaining effective public service delivery to members of the public who accessed their services on application and processing for visas, passports, marriages and citizenship. He also seized the opportunity to commend President Muhammadu Buhari for giving approval for the implementation of additional standard security features on Nigerian passports.

Another commitment from the minister is to radically transform service efficiency within the agencies under the ministry. For example, the NIS has begun a process to ensure that all backlogs of passport are completely cleared. Over 40,000 passports are now ready to be collected from the 230,550 passport applications processed over the previous year, following the directive of the minister to the agency to clear all backlogs within six weeks.

The minister, in a statement, advised members of the public whose passports are with the NIS to visit the website, check their names and visit the relevant passport offices for collection.

‘This again underscores the commitment to deliver a pleasant experience that aids the government’s focus on improving the business climate and also facilitates the ease of doing business’, Aregbesola said.

‘The implications of having a backlog of passports can be enormous; it has bearing on many aspects of our economic and social life. One can only imagine the unavailability of an international passport for a local investor who needs to travel for months but couldn’t because of the passport. This is what the improved process we see today would completely eliminate and our business men and women wouldn’t have to wait for months unending’.