The Controller-General of the Nigeria Immigration Service, Muhammad Babandede has denied claims that the Nigerian passport booklets is being manufactured in Malaysia, he however confirmed that passport booklets are not produced locally.
Mr Babandede, at a press briefing in Abuja on Wednesday, the production of the country’s passport booklets was contracted to an Nigerian company IRIS SmRt Technology Ltd.
He noted that the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, the justice minister, and the NIS were working on producing passport booklets in Nigeria to address the challenges of its non-availability.
He said the commission will soon start the issuance of its enhanced 10 years validity passports in London and Atlanta, U.S.
Babandede said that the new enhanced passport would solve a lot of issues related to passport renewal by Nigerians in diaspora.
He also added that the service was working at deploying more machines and personnel to Nigeria Foriegn missions abroad to clear the backlogs of passports for those who had registered.
“The new enhanced passport is intended to solve many problems especially the number of times Nigerians need to come and renew their passports.
“The idea is to also link the identity of Nigerians to their National Identification Number (NIN), which means we are reducing identity theft in the country,” he said.