Nigeria Boosts Passport Production to 10,000 Booklets Hourly

​In a major shift for Nigeria’s immigration landscape, the Federal Government has announced that the nation now possesses the capacity to produce 10,000 passports per hour. This massive surge in output follows sweeping digital reforms and the deployment of a state-of-the-art, centralised passport personalisation centre in Abuja.

​The Minister of Interior, Dr. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, made the disclosure while addressing stakeholders at the International Civil Service Conference held in the federal capital.

​A Departure from Six Decades of Fragmentation

​According to the minister, the establishment of the automated facility marks the first time since 1963 that Nigeria has operated a single, highly automated passport personalisation hub. Prior to these interventions, national passport operations were heavily fragmented across dozens of local and international desks, causing widespread system vulnerabilities and delays.

​Tunji-Ojo contrasted the new milestone with historical operational baselines, noting that the country previously averaged a global output of just 400 to 500 passports per hour.

ADVERTISEMENT

​”For the first time since 1963, we have a world-class centralised personalisation centre in Abuja,” Tunji-Ojo stated. “Today, we are in a position to do nothing less than 10,000 passports per hour with a centralised level of control.”

​Clearing Backlogs Through System Automation

​Reflecting on the administrative challenges met by the current administration, the minister revealed that the ministry inherited a backlog of over 200,000 pending applications, a situation that had severely strained public trust.

​Through targeted automation, the ministry successfully cleared 270,000 accumulated applications within a three-week window by removing manual intervention points where artificial bottlenecks typically thrive.

​”We automated the process. Let people speak to systems, not people speaking to people. When people speak to systems, it enhances efficiency,” the minister remarked, noting that the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has processed and issued over 3.6 million passports since the inception of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration.

​Call for Public Sector Innovation

​Tying the migration milestone to the conference theme of “Reforms, Resilience and Results,” Tunji-Ojo admonished public administrators to look past outdated bureaucratic methods and emotional attachments to obsolete workflows. He argued that institutional interventions often falter because challenges are poorly diagnosed before solutions are applied.

​The minister re-emphasized that the era of informal delays and operational excuses within passport offices is over, pointing to the automated hub as practical proof that public institutions can regain citizen trust through deliberate, technology-driven leadership.