Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, has announced that the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) can now produce between 4,000 and 5,000 passports within five hours, marking a historic first in the Service’s 62-year history.

He disclosed this on Thursday after inspecting the newly built Centralised Passport Personalisation Centre at the NIS Headquarters in Abuja, alongside the Permanent Secretary, Dr. Magdalene Ajani, and the Comptroller General of Immigration, Kemi Nanna Nandap.

With the new infrastructure, Tunji-Ojo said, the NIS can personalise over 1,000 passports in just one hour—an exponential leap from the previous capacity of 250 to 300 passports daily.

“This morning, I inspected the newly built Centralised Passport Personalisation Centre at the NIS headquarters in Abuja. With these strategic infrastructural investments—which did not cost the government a kobo—the Service can now personalise more than 1,000 passports every hour,” the minister stated.

“To put this into perspective, before this development, the NIS managed only 250 to 300 passports daily. Today, within just five working hours, the Service can deliver between 4,500 and 5,000 passports. For the first time in 62 years, this centralisation ends the production of passports at multiple centres across the world.”