The Japa syndrome has increased in 2024 as 32,462 Nigerians have applied for international passports and uploaded their documents from the Nigeria Immigration Service site between January 8 and 21, 2024.
According to the Comptroller-General of Immigration Service, Caroline Adepoju, out of 32,462 applications, 15,113 have been approved for biometric capture and production, which is fifty percent of the total application.
Adepoju, who was on a visit to Ikoyi and Alausa passport offices recently, briefed journalists at the end of the assessment.
The Immigration boss said of the 32,462 applications, 11,505 were awaiting approval, while 3,406 who made payment have not booked appointments.
According to her, 1,438 applications were queried for different reasons.
She said: “50 per cent of the total applications have been successfully approved for biometric capture, production and issuance, 35 per cent awaits approval, 11 per cent made payments but yet to book appointments and only four per cent of total applications were queried.
“When queries are successfully answered, the applications return to the queue and are subsequently approved for biometric acquisition, production and issuance.
“The major difference now is that supporting documents are now uploaded online. It is a research-based decision and we have been recording successes.
“As of this morning (yesterday), we have only recorded four per cent rejection of uploaded documents which may be due to errors on the side of the applicant. But our help desk is operational 24/7.
“The Nigeria Immigration Service, our technical partners, service providers and other stakeholders worked together with the Minister of Interior, Dr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, to come up with this reform on the automation of passport process which has been in place since the inception of the issuance of enhanced e-passport in 2020.”
