FG announces passports will be ready within one week after application

The Federal Government has said that Nigerians will now receive their passports within one week of enrolment, following major reforms in the issuance process.

Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, made this known on Thursday in Abuja during the ministry’s mid-tenure performance retreat.

“Our target is very clear: within one week of enrolment, every Nigerian should have their passport in hand. Not just delivering quickly, but delivering quality passports that reflect our integrity as a nation,” the minister declared.

“The system that we inherited, which had six months of backlog, which we were able to clear in two and a half weeks, that system that was inefficient, Nigerians will apply for a passport, it will take six to seven months to get it, a system that, for a passport, you need to pay ₦200,000 to ₦250,000, that system we inherited was inefficient.

“My own daughter had that bad experience. Even when I was chairman of the House Committee on the NDDC, my daughter wanted a passport, but it was a problem. I had to pay hundreds of thousands to be able to get a passport for my daughter, a 12-year-old girl. That era is over,” Tunji-Ojo said.

The Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, has said that the new centralised personalisation centre—described as the largest in Africa—will guarantee faster passport processing and enhanced security.

“With this facility, we can now print five times more passports than our current demand. Once enrolment is done, vetting takes less than 24 hours. Printing capacity is no longer our challenge,” he stated.

The minister further disclosed that passport control officers (PCOs) would no longer have the authority to approve or delay applications, noting that some had been linked to corruption and inefficiency within the system.

According to him, the reform is designed to curb racketeering, eliminate unnecessary delays, and restore integrity to Nigeria’s travel documents.

“Some PCOs wielded so much power that they could withhold approvals or delay printing until they were ‘settled.’

That abuse of power ends now,” Tunji-Ojo declared, adding that centralising approvals will prevent applicants from being subjected to the whims of individual officers.