Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, Nigeria’s Minister of Interior, has announced that the home delivery of passports will commence in June.
Speaking during an inspection of the electronic gates at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport’s new terminal in Abuja on May 24, Tunji-Ojo outlined the initial rollout locations and emphasized the importance of the new system.
The minister clarified that the home delivery service will initially be available in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kano, and Abuja to prevent overloading and potential damage to the system.
For Nigerians abroad, the service will begin in the United States and the United Kingdom, with preliminary testing to ensure its effectiveness.
Tunji-Ojo attributed the delay in launching the home delivery service to the absence of a dedicated data center for the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS).
He revealed that the NIS had previously relied on a private company’s data center, which was not a sustainable long-term solution.
“We have completed the whole solution but when we came on board, we realized that the data center was not really there,” said Tunji-Ojo.
“We were leveraging on a private company data center and we appreciate them for that assistance. We think that it is better to create a permanent solution to problems rather than quick fixes.”
He explained that while the system could have been operational in February, the decision was made to build a new data center from scratch to maintain the integrity of Nigeria’s data and ensure national security.
“It is disgraceful that NIS is 61 years old and NIS is a custodian of biometric data of Nigeria and we believe that NIS should be in charge of the data of Nigeria. It is not acceptable that this data is domiciled in a third party and that is why we have been able to do this,” he added.
Tunji-Ojo confirmed that the data center construction is complete and the passport delivery solution has been resolved. He assured Nigerians that the new system meets global standards and will enhance national security.
“We have built the data center, sorted the passport delivery solution and done the final presentation in terms of technology deliverables and the tracking solution which will all be embedded in the application we have so we do not create multiple lines of failure,” he concluded.
