The Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) has concluded arrangement to produce Nigeria’s international passport locally and is considering the Nigerian Security, Minting and Printing Company, among other firms, to do the job.
The Comptroller General of the Service, Mohammed Babandede who made this disclosure in Lagos, said it was becoming increasingly difficult to produce travel documents abroad considering the current exchange rate.
Babandede who was in Lagos on a two-day working visit to some formations, explained that producing international passport locally would conserve foreign exchange.
Briefing media men at Seme Command where he had gone to commission three blocks of five rooms transit camp for officers, Babandede explained that the production of passport is a public private partnership (PPP) project, meaning that government would invest not cash but buildings and human resources.
Shedding light on how passports were produced against the new vision, he said, “The company produces the passport abroad. They bring the booklets from abroad, but we have asked ourselves why can’t we produce same in Nigeria? You know that this administration is conserving foreign exchange and the company is complying to make sure that these booklets are produced locally in Nigeria.”
Babandede said acting President Yemi Osinbajo was handling the issue of scarcity, and that in one or two months there would be enough passports.
