The surge by Nigerians to leave the country for greener pasture amid ongoing economic woes reached its crescendo as 32,462 people applied for international passports within two weeks in 2024.

Out of 32,462 applications, 15,113 have been approved for biometric capture and production, which is 50% of the total application, while 4% were rejected due to applicant errors.

The Comptroller-General of Immigration Service, Caroline Adepoju, disclosed this during a visit to Lagos passport offices. She acknowledged bottlenecks – over 11,000 applications await approval, and 3,400 applicants who paid haven’t booked appointments.

Adepoju 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 “.

She stressed that the introduction of the automation of passport applications was not new, “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.”