The Federal Government has said no fewer than 250,000 international passports are yet to be collected by Nigerians.
This was made known on Thursday in Enugu by the Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola at the unveiling of the enhanced electronic passport facility and commissioning of the passport production centre at the Enugu passport office.
Speaking on the complains of many Nigerians in recent times about their inability to procure the travel document, the minister said, “the last time I checked, over 250,000 passports remained uncollected by applicants”.
“Their owners will probably be among those complaining that they are yet to receive their passports.
“Nevertheless, many applicants are not going to have their passports because of the errors in their applications, which delayed processing.
“They may not know because they applied through touts and other illegal channels,” he explained.
The passport production centre, inaugurated three months after the commissioning of that of the Southwest in Ibadan, is to serve entire Southeastern Nigeria.
Aregbesola added that the federal government was working to phase out the old electronic passports, stating that its issuance in the Southeast stopped on Thursday 3rd March 2022.
He said the introduction of the enhanced electronic passports was to eradicate scams, racketeering, and all other forms of corruption in the application process of the document.