The Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Mr Muhammad Babandede, has said passport issuing offices all over the country will stay open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily to clear the backlog of applications.
Speaking while briefing newsmen on the NIS passport reforms and recruitment exercise on Thursday in Abuja, Babandede also announced an increase in its production capacity of the passport booklets to beat the May 31 deadline set to clear backlog of passport applications.
He said that the passport production centres across the country were working round the clock to clear the backlogs before the commencement of the new passport regime on June 1.
NIS boss also gave assurance that the service had enough booklet, adding that a total of 23,903 passports were currently awaiting collection by the applicants.
According to him, more than 35,000 passports had been produced in the last few days, with about 22,840 collected, 23,903 not collected and 28 damaged.
He however warned that any officer involved in passports racketeering would be dealt with going forward, adding that the erring officers were partly responsible for the uncollected passports.
