Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, the interior minister, has committed to address the challenges Nigerians living abroad face while applying for passports.
In order to lessen the difficulty of getting a passport for people living abroad, he declared that more passport desk offices would be opened around the world by February 2024.
On Thursday, the Minister spoke as he was a guest on Arise News.
Tunji-Ojo guaranteed that captured Nigerians in the diaspora will receive their passports within the following three weeks.
He said that now that the backlogs within the nation had been cleared, his focus is on people living abroad.
The fact that Canada only has one passport office is unacceptable, according to Tunji-Ojo. We must work with private organizations to do this because the government might not have the funds to open passport offices everywhere in the world. For instance, in the UK, all passport applications must be submitted in person in London, regardless of the applicant’s location. Additionally, corruption develops when there is an excessive demand for something.
“I can tell you that we will have passport front offices all around the world by February of next year. Additionally, we are making great efforts to guarantee those already captured Nigerians in the diaspora receive their passports. After resolving the home concerns, we are now concentrating on those abroad. In the upcoming two to three weeks, we’ll see to it that those who have been captured receive their passports.
The minister stated the use of technology would significantly aid in decreasing corruption in the nation’s passport management.
The greatest approach to combat corruption, he asserted, is to limit your interaction with others. We must use technology to both stop this and improve the way our services are delivered. Nigerians should refrain from using proxies to obtain their passports.
