The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has stated that Nigerians may soon begin to pay charges for the verification of their National Identification Number (NIN) when applying for an international passport.
Each application for a Nigerian passport from a resident of Nigeria will incur a N1000 fee for NIN verification. This is a result of the collaboration between the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) and the NIMC in order to speed up the supply of passport services in the nation.
The NIMC hinted the introduction of the fees in a statement released on Monday by Kayode Adegoke, the organization’s head of corporate communications.
“The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) wishes to inform the general public that it has devised and agreed on a framework with the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) to significantly improve the quality of service, accuracy, and speed of passport services through the timely verification of the National Identification Number (NIN),” the statement said.
Recently, a lot of Nigerians have had trouble getting their NINs verified for the overseas passport registration procedure. This, along with other problems, causes a delay in passport production.
In order to expedite the issuing of foreign passports to applicants, the NIMC declared in 2022 that measures were under way to enable Nigerians to confirm their NIN on its website.
In the statement released on Monday, the identity management agency described how the new arrangement advances a directive from the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy to improve the procedures for applying for, renewing, and issuing passports.
“Consequently, a NIN Verification fee would be charged for each Nigerian passport application for this service,” the statement noted.
The statement said that each application for a Nigerian passport will be charged N1000 for NIN verification under the new system, which is scheduled to go into effect on 1 April.
However, it stated that Nigerians residing in other African or international locations will be charged a cost of $5 and $15.00, respectively (or its equivalent in other currencies).
“NIMC and NIS have agreed on a revised applicant journey that will significantly improve the speed of passport issuance/re-issuance and reduce the traffic visiting the NIS office (s).The NIN service, fees, and the new NIS process will go live on 1st April 2023,” the statement added.
