By The Federal Government has said it will deploy undercover agents to check touting, extortion and other sharp practices at passport offices nationwide and abroad.
The Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola disclosed this on Thursday, at a meeting with the Comptroller General of Immigration, Mohammad Babandede, Passport Officers, as well as the attaches in Nigeria Missions abroad, at the Immigration Headquartres, Sauka, Abuja.
”I am declaring a zero-tolerance stance to all forms of touting. No applicant will be made to pay any illegitimate fees,” the minister said.
”We are going to embed security operatives, seen and unseen, in all our passport offices. They will wear body cameras.
”They will detect and report any form of solicitations, inflation, improper communications, extortion, diversion, hoarding and other corrupt practices.”
Aregbesola, in his speech titled ‘A NEW DAWN IN PASSPORT APPLICATION PROCESSING’ announced plans to turn around the entire passport application process by the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) to six weeks, so as to ensure seamless, transparent, as well as according human dignity to applicants and fulfil citizenship integrity, in line with the mandate of the Ministry of Interior.
He said: “We have had several challenges in the past, including shortage of booklets, touting, racketeering, inflating the cost, passports being issued to ineligible persons, among others. It has become imperative therefore to review our operations and rejig our system, in order to be able to offer excellent services to our clients.”
The minister disclosed further that an ombudsman will also be created for members of the public to receive complaints and reports on officers trying to deviate from prescribed guidelines and subversion of the process.
Aregbesola, while expressing gratitude to President Muhammadu Buhari for his consistent support for the Ministry of Interior, called for the support and maximum cooperation of all passport officers so to make more significant contribution to national development.
