By The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has cleared the air over the disparity in the cost of processing international passports in different parts of the country.
The NIS had come under fire on social media after it was revealed that Nigerians in the South are charged more to process their passports, unlike their counterparts in the North.
Checks on the agency’s website showed that a huge disparity exist in the passport charges for applicants across different parts of the country, a development that has since elicited mixed reactions from Nigerians.
But in a statement issued by the Comptroller General, Isah Jere Idris, on Thursday, the NIS denied the alleged discriminatory passport charges, saying passports are issued to Nigerians irrespective of their region of residence.
The agency explained that the reason for the disparity is because Nigeria currently operates two passport regimes: electronic passport and enhanced electronic passport.
“The latter is an improvement of the former. It is a product of the latest technology in Passport issuance. It has improved security features, a poly carbonate data page and comes in three categories of 32-page five-year validity (N25,000), 64-page five- year (N35000) and 64-page ten-year validity (N70000),” the statement read in part.
“It was unveiled sometime in 2019 & seven Passport Centres including Ikoyi, Abuja, Alausa, FESTAC, Portharcourt. Kano & Gwagwalada were immediately migrated to the enhanced Passport regime then.
“Meanwhile, the electronic Passport is the usual one we have been issuing since the introduction of ePassport in 2007. The fee chargeable range from N8750-N17800 depending on age of the applicant and category of Passport.
“At the moment, the Service is steadily migrating all its Passport Centres to the enhanced ePassport regime. To this effect, all the Centres in South-South, South-West & South-East including our Desks in the UK&USA have been fully migrated to the enhanced regime. In the work plan, Centres in the North-West, North-East, Canada & others are getting ready for migration to the enhanced Passport regime very soon.”
