We are working to make the Nigerian passports foolproof - NIS

macfranc007 July 06, 2018 Nigeria News today & Breaking news ▷ Read Naija news 24/7 David Oladele

- Nigerian passports might soon get new security features over terrorism

- The NIS spokesman, Sunday James, confirmed that the service is considering the idea of adding new security features to the passports

- James said NIS is working to make the passports foolproof by enhancing the security features

The Nigeria Immigration Service is said to have started planning to embed passports with advanced security features as part of the new security measures to make them tamper-proof.

Punch reports that NIS has engaged experts to evaluate the biometric features of the passport booklets and enhance them further to prevent the cloning of the travel document by terrorists and other criminals.

NAIJ.com gathered that the NIS was anxious by the rising cases of tampering and cloning of the passport, hence the decision to fortify it with new security chips.

It was learnt that the NIS spokesman, Sunday James, confirmed that the service was considering the idea of adding new security features to the passports.

James said: “We are working to make the Nigerian passports foolproof by enhancing the security features.”

He was, however, silent on whether it would lead to a hike in the prices of the passport booklets.

Currently, a fresh 32-page standard passport goes for N10,750 for children aged 0-17; N17,000 for 18-59 years; N10,750 for senior citizens aged 60 years and above, while the 64-page version is sold for N22,000 flat rate.

Re-issues, including renewals, exhausted validity and damaged booklets, attract the same fees as fresh ones but lost passports go for N20, 000 across all categories.

The production of children passports has slacked following complaints over the disparity in the prices between the children and the adult passport booklets by the producers.

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It was learnt that the booklet producers were no longer supplying enough children passports because they believed they were producing them at a loss.

James said: “The firms complained about the N7, 750 price disparity between children and adult booklets which they said did not make economic or business sense because the two categories of booklets were produced at the same cost.”

Meanwhile, NAIJ.com had reported that the Comptroller General of the Nigerian Immigration Service Muhammad Babandede said the service is in the process of hiring 1,112 officers in its ongoing recruitment exercise.

The recruitment exercise is the first since 2014 when a similar exercise was mired by controversy following a stampede that killed many applicants, including seven in Abuja, the nation’s capital.

Babandede said the current recruitment drive is meant to fill the shortfall of slots left after the service had absorbed 888 of 2,000 officers engaged in May 2015 that were later disengaged in August of the same year.

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