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Nigerian govt unveils improved e-passport to facilitate applications

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The Federal Government on Tuesday unveiled the new enhanced e-Passport to improve passport application process for Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora.

This was made known by Rauf Aregbesola, the Minister of Interior Affairs, in a statement signed by Mr Sola Fasure, his Media Adviser, in Abuja.

According to the statement, Aregbesola while speaking at the official rollout of the enhanced e-Passport at the Nigerian High Commission in London, UK, noted that it was the responsibility of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to provide passports for its citizens without stress within a reasonable period.

“What we have come to do here is symbolic of the core mandate of the Ministry of Interior Affairs and indeed, the Federal Government’s affirmation of citizenship integrity.

“The Nigerian passport is the highest affirmation of Nigerian citizenship. It is, therefore, our responsibility to provide the passport without any stress, within a reasonable period,” the minister said.

He noted that there had been huge challenges to passport administration, from the shortage of booklets to touting and an economy of corruption built around it.

“But I come from a tradition of problem-solving in public administration, I do not believe that any problem is insurmountable.

Read also: Banks accuse customers of using expired travel tickets, fake passports to obtain forex

“So we are going to solve all the problems associated with passport administration and we are already succeeding,” he said.

He said the new enhanced passport was a huge improvement from the standard passport introduced in 2007 because it had more sophisticated security features, making it one of the most secured passports in the world.

The minister said that the enhanced e-Passport was a great improvement on the Biometric Passport technology which Nigeria adopted in 2007 as a strategic step towards curbing forgery and impersonation.

He said this included other forms of fraud associated with obtaining travel documents under the old Machine Readable Passport regime.

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