Minister of Interior Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo says the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) can now process and deliver between 4,000 and 5,000 passports in just five hours — a feat being achieved for the first time in 62 years.

He disclosed this on Thursday after inspecting the newly built Centralised Passport Personalisation Centre at the NIS Headquarters in Abuja.

According to Tunji-Ojo, the new infrastructure allows the NIS to personalise over 1,000 passports per hour, a massive leap from the previous capacity of just 250 to 300 passports per day.

“This morning, alongside the Permanent Secretary, Dr Magdalene Ajani, and the Comptroller General of the NIS, Kemi Nanna Nandap, I inspected the newly built Centralised Passport Personalisation Centre at the NIS headquarters in Abuja.

“With these strategic infrastructural investments, which did not cost a kobo to the government, the NIS can now personalise over 1,000 passports in one hour.

“To put it into perspective, long before this development, the service could only record an average of 250 to 300 passports daily. But today, under five work hours, the service can now deliver about 4,500 to 5,000 passports.

“As a major milestone, for the first time in 62 years of the NIS, this centralisation puts an end to the production of our passports at multiple centres across the world,” he said.