The Minister of interior, Rauf Aregbesola on Monday inaugurated a passport front office in the Alimosho area of Lagos State.
The office was established by the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) to further ease application, processing, and collection of the Nigerian international passport.
In a statement by Anthony Akuneme, NIS public relations officer, Aregbesola said no less than additional 14 passport front offices would be created in Lagos because the state accounts for 50 percent of all applications across the country.
On the significance, the minister said the office will “address shortage gap” and decongest traffic at the Ikoyi, Festac and Alausa centres, adding that the federal government may consider a public-private partnership arrangement for more passport front offices in the state.
“We certainly need more of this in Lagos. This is because half of all passport applications are made in Lagos.
“At no time are less than 100,000 applicants from Lagos on the NIS portal applying for passports,” he said.
“We will therefore need not less than 15 of these front offices in Lagos alone, to be able to cut the application waiting period to one week.
“Due to funding constraints, the government might consider public-private partnership arrangement to set up more passport front offices as part of other steps to deal with the challenges in urban centres where applications for passports are unusually high.”
On his part, Jere Idris, comptroller-general of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), described the office as a “legacy project” that will bring efficient services to Lagos and its environs.
