The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) explained why citizens in the South saw different price for passport and others in the North saw lower charges.
“The Passports we issue are for Nigerians irrespective of where they live including those in the diaspora. What we do have are two Passport regimes that are running concurrently. They are the electronic Passport and enhanced electronic Passport,” the agency said in a Twitter thread.
It claimed that the enhanced electronic Passport is an improvement on the former one, just as the name claimed. “It is a product of the latest technology in Passport issuance. It has improved security features, a poly carbonate data page and comes in three categories of 32-page five-year validity (N25,000), 64-page five- year (N35000) and 64-page ten-year validity (N70000),” the NIS explained further.
However, despite being unveiled in 2019, it is only available in seven issuing centres: Ikoyi (Lagos State), Abuja (Federal Capital Territory), Alausa (Lagos State), FESTAC (Lagos State), Port Harcourt (Rivers State), Kano (Kano State), and Gwagwalada (Federal Capital Territory).
Clearly, the distribution of where the new charges apply is more in the Southern part of Nigeria.
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“At the moment, the Service is steadily migrating all its Passport Centres to the enhanced ePassport regime. To this effect, all the Centres in South-South, South-West&South-East including our Desks in the UK&USA have been fully migrated to the enhanced regime,” it said.
The NIS assured that it is working on migrating the other centres in the North to the new pricing structure.
“We therefore, like to reiterate that there is absolutely no discriminatory Passport fees anywhere on our platform. We advise those peddling such empty narrative to get educated by this clarification please,” it said in conclusion.
The issue had originally arisen after a Twitter user showed the pricing difference for the Nigerian passport when the location was changed.
While the explanation is credible, other users called the service out for almost instantly migrating centres in the South to a higher payment structure while leaving their Northern counterparts to continue ‘enjoying’ a cheaper service.
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