Nigeria has completed its first Centralised Passport Personalisation and Production Centre, a project the government says will permanently end delays and backlogs in the country’s passport issuance process.
The Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, announced the development on Thursday during a tour of the facility at the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) headquarters in Abuja. He described the initiative as a landmark step in President Bola Tinubu’s reform agenda to modernise passport administration and align it with global best practices.
Until now, passports were personalised across 96 locations in Nigeria and abroad. The new model consolidates production into a single hub, ensuring efficiency, uniformity, and stricter quality control.
“With this centre, Nigeria joins countries like the United States, United Kingdom, France, and India that run centralised passport personalisation systems,” the Minister said. “This is a big win for the government and a major shift towards efficiency and reliability.”
The facility, built in partnership with IRISMAT Technologies Limited, houses advanced machines capable of producing up to 1,000 passports per hour. This represents a massive leap from the previous Iskra machines, which produced only 250–300 per day.
According to Tunji-Ojo, the new system enables the NIS to produce 4,500–5,000 passports daily, reducing processing time to between 24 hours and one week. He noted that when the administration took office, it inherited over 204,000 pending applications, but the backlog has now been cleared.
Key reforms tied to the project include migration to a single passport series, global authentication compliance under the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), and improved diaspora coverage.
The Minister stressed that the project was delivered through a strategic partnership and not directly funded by government coffers. He also commended the support of President Tinubu, the Ministry’s Permanent Secretary, the Comptroller-General of Immigration, and NIS officers.
He assured Nigerians that the centre would drastically cut waiting times and eliminate irregularities. “Since the establishment of the Immigration Service in 1963, Nigeria has never had a facility of this standard. This project positions Nigeria shoulder-to-shoulder with advanced nations in passport management,” he said.
