Senate has directed its committee on Interior to urgently investigate the circumstances leading to the delay of issuance and renewal of Nigeria International Passport by the Nigerian Immigration Services(NIS).
The Upper Chamber also mandated the committee to investigate the contract award for the production of international passport turn in the report of the investigation within two weeks.
The Senate’s resolution followed the adoption of a motion on the ” Delay on issuance , renewal of Nigeria International Passport “by the Nigerian Immigration Services at Plenary on Tuesday and was sponsored by Senator Ekwunife Lilian Uche representing Anambra Central.
Senator Ekwunife in her lead debate said the delay for the renewal of Nigeria international passport by the Nigerian Immigration Service was resulting in untold hardships for Nigerians, who need to travel out of the country or return to the country.
She said the international passport was an official identity document, issued to Nigerians for the purpose of traveling out and into the country in exercise of their rights to personal liberty and freedom of movement.
She said many Nigerians were still facing challenge with passport processing, despite the six weeks time line of processing passport, given by the Federal Government barely a year ago .
According to her, presently, new applicants and those who want their passports renewed spend between three to six months processing their international passport applications at the offices of the Nigerian Immigration Services and Nigeria embassies outside the country.
Ekwunife said getting appointment for biometric capturing at the passport offices now takes between five to eight weeks, while it takes , many applicants four months waiting for their passports to be ready for collection after the biometric exercise.
She said that it has also become extremely difficult for passport to be processed across the entire Nigeria immigration offices in different states, expecialy Lagos, Abuja and PortHarcourt .
This, she noted was forcing the applicants to travel to various locations to get their passports renewed.
“The international students are also finding it very difficult to renew their passports to enable them travel back to reunite with their families,”She said.
