The Nigeria Immigration Service NIS, says beginning from January 2018, it would not be issuing a passport to any Nigerian that does not have his or her National Identification Number that is being issued by the National Identity Management Commission.
Comptroller-General of the NIS, Mr. Mohammed Babandede, said this when he spoke to state house correspondents after a meeting of the database harmonization committee at Aso Rock, Abuja yesterday August 1st. According to Babandede, the rule will apply to both first-time applicants and those that come for renewal.
"The biggest problem we are facing is that everybody is deploying his own technology; but harmonisation of data will solve that. We have agreed that from January 1, 2018, anybody who is going to apply for the Nigerian passport, whether renewal or fresh application, must first have a National Identity Number. Why we are doing this is that we want to ease process of doing business in Nigeria. There is no need for you to go and have your biometrics captured by the NIMC and then you come and capture again with the Nigeria Immigration Service. Once you give us your NIN, we will collect the biometrics from the NIMC and produce your passport.”he said
No comments:
Post a Comment