The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) on Tuesday 15th January 2019 launched the new ten (10) years E-passport by presenting same to President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice Yemi Osinbajo.
The presentation which was done by the Minister of Interior, Abdulrahman Dambazau, and the Comptroller General of Nigeria Immigration Service, Mohammed Babandede shortly before the commencement of an extraordinary meeting of the Federal Executive Council inside the council chamber of the presidential villa.
Briefing newsmen, Babandele disclosed that apart from the 10-year validity, the new passport is weather friendly. He further revealed that polycarbonate technology that eliminates damage was inputted into the document. The Immigration boss opined that Nigerians in diaspora will now be saved the time of frequently visiting Nigerian embassies for new passports.
It would be recalled that in October 2018 Mr. Babandede announced that Nigeria will begin using the new passport by December 2018.
Speaking with Channels Television, he said: “ten years after the enrollment of the e-passport system, we need to improve the security features”.
“You can’t keep documents for 10 years without seeing decreased values in them, so we are improving the security features which would raise the standards of the passports,” he said.