Nigerians will soon have the delivery of their passports at home, as the Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, announced that home delivery of passports will commence in June. The announcement came during his inspection of the electronic gates at the new terminal of Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja.
The service will initially cover major cities, including Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kano, and Abuja, to avoid overwhelming the system. For Nigerians abroad, the service will start in the United States and the United Kingdom, following preliminary testing to ensure its effectiveness.
Tunji-Ojo explained that the delay in implementing home delivery was due to the lack of data centres. The Nigerian Immigration Service had been relying on a private company’s data centre, necessitating the creation of a permanent solution to maintain data integrity and national security.
He emphasised that building a dedicated data centre was crucial for the security of biometric data. “We have completed the solution but had to build our data centre from scratch to ensure the integrity of our data. It’s disgraceful that NIS, as the custodian of Nigeria’s biometric data, didn’t have its own data centre until now.”
The minister assured that the new data centre meets global standards, securing national data. He embedded the technology and tracking solutions in the new application, ensuring no multiple lines of failure.
Furthermore, the minister finalised the electronic visa processing system, reducing the processing time from 72 hours to 48 hours. The announcement of these advancements comes nine months after the minister’s initial declaration that home delivery of passports would begin by February 2024.
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