AFRICA ( Commonwealth Union) _ People requesting passports will pay N1000 in Nigeria for the verification of their National Identification Number, according to information released by the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC). The commission claims that by promptly verifying NIN, the fee will increase the timeliness, accuracy, and quality of passport services.
The Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy’s directive to streamline the passport application, renewal, and issuance processes is furthered by this new arrangement, according to NIMC.As a result, each application for a Nigerian passport would be subject to a NIN Verification fee. “NIMC and NIS have reached an understanding over a revamped applicant journey that will greatly speed up passport issuance and reissuance and decrease traffic at the NIS office” (s). On April 1st, the NIN service, fees, and new NIS process will go into effect.
Isah Idris, the acting comptroller general of the Nigerian Immigration Service, attributed the delay in passport issuing to the data integration between NIS and NIMC.
He further stated that the integration of data between NIS and the NIMC, which in turn combine with the BVN data of applicants, may be the cause of the delay in processing passport applications and it is a way to speed up the process of issuing international passports
Recently, the delay in passport issuance was blamed to the data integration between NIS and NIMC by Isah Idris, the acting comptroller general of the Nigerian Immigration Service. In order to expedite the issuing of foreign passports to applicants, the NIMC declared in 2022 that preparations were in the works to make it possible for Nigerians to check their NIN on the website.
However, the new strategic approach of paying the NIN when applying for an international passport will quicken the process before acquisition.
