The Federal Government has increased the fees for the procurement of Nigerian Passport with effect from the 1st of September 2024.
A statement by the spokesman of the Nigeria Immigration Service, DCI Kenneth Udo noted that the increment is a part of the government’s efforts to maintain the quality and integrity of the Nigerian Standard Passport.
He said that based on the review, a 32-page Passport booklet with 5-year validity previously charged at N35,000.00 will now be N50,000.00 only; while a 64-page Passport booklet with 10-year validity which was N70,000.00 will be N100,000.00 only.
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The statement further adds that the fees remain unchanged for Nigerians in Diaspora.
“As part of its efforts to maintain the quality and integrity of the Nigerian Standard Passport, the Federal Government has approved an upward review of the fees for the passport, effective from September 1, 2024.
“Based on the review, a 32-page passport booklet with five-year validity previously charged at N35,000 will now be N50,000 only; while a 64-page passport booklet with 10-year validity which was N70,000 will be N100,000,” the statement read.
The NIS said though it regretted “any inconvenience this increase might cause prospective applicants,” it assured Nigerians of “unwavering commitment to transparency and quality service delivery at all times.”
Nigeria’s passport system has seen significant improvements, particularly under the leadership of the Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, who, in August 2023, directed the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) to clear a backlog of over 200,000 pending passport applications within two weeks.
By October 2023, the NIS announced that it had successfully cleared this backlog, urging Nigerians to collect their passports from respective offices.
In May 2024, the government announced that home delivery of passports would begin in June, eliminating the need for Nigerians to visit immigration offices, reflecting a broader effort to streamline passport issuance and improve accessibility.
However, despite these significant moves, the Nigerian passport was ranked as one of the 20 least powerful in 2024 for up to a decade, according to the Henley Passport Index, which ranks all the world’s passports based on the number of destinations their holders can access without a prior visa.
Based on information provided by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), Nigeria is ranked 92 out of 103 on the index, with visa-free access to only 45 countries out of 227 this year.
Africa’s largest settlement has continued to maintain bottom ranking since 2015, performing poorly against its West African counterparts and forcing its citizens to spend millions of naira on visa travel to most cities.
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