BY Ayodele Oluwafemi
Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, minister of interior, says the automation of Nigeria’s passport application is 99 percent complete.
Speaking on Tuesday in an interview on Channels Television, Tunji-Ojo said the automated application will become operational in a week’s time.
The interior minister said after the completion of the automation process, Nigerians will only go to immigration centres to do fingerprint biometrics for their passports.
He added that with the new system, Nigerians can upload their passport photographs and other supporting documents from the comfort of their homes.
“We gave a date — December 2023. We are 99 percent done. In fact, we have done the testing and we should be going live in the next one week or thereabouts,” he said.
“This will ensure that Nigerians, all they need to do at an immigration centre, is just fingerprint biometrics.
“Everything regarding pre-biometrics will be done in the comfort of your homes, including uploading passport photographs and supporting documents.
“They will have gone live about two weeks ago but I saw some errors when they came to do the presentation and I said no. We were talking about balancing national security and convenience.”
Speaking further, the minister said e-gate systems would be installed at international airports in the country by February 2024.
“By February, all our international airports will have e-gates,” he added.
“Once you are a Nigerian coming to Nigeria, you have no business seeing an immigration officer except if you are a person of interest.”
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