Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, has inaugurated the central Passport Production Centre in Ottawa, Canada.

Mr Aregbesola said Nigerians living in Canada now have access to the coveted 64-page 10-year validity passport.

This is contained in a statement by the minister’s media aide, Sola Fasure, on Wednesday in Abuja.

“It comes with additional security and in various categories, including the 64-page-10-year validity passport, which is convenient for frequent travellers.

“Indeed, Nigeria is among the first five countries in the world and the first in Africa to have this enhanced e-passport,” he said.

The minister commended the Nigerian High Commissioner to Canada, Adeyinka Asekun, for his commitment towards ensuring that Canada had its passport production centre.

“It is important that all applicants go through the NIS portal and follow the protocol laid down, pay the right fee and go for biometric data capture on the stipulated date.

“The waiting period after data capture for fresh application is six weeks and three weeks for renewal.

“This timeline is to enable NIS to verify and validate applicants’ claims and confer integrity on the passport issued. It is a reasonable provision in passport administration by the global standard.”

Mr Aregbesola also said it was important that applicants’ NIN be synced with the data on their applications.

“We have introduced a tracking mechanism in the application process to enable applicants to monitor the progress of their application.

“We shall continue to introduce necessary and available innovations to passport administration to best serve applicants in our quest for establishing citizenship integrity”, the minister added.

In his remarks, the High Commissioner commended Mr Aregbesola and the acting comptroller-general of NIS, Isah Jere, for the inauguration of the enhanced passport in Canada.

Earlier, Mr Jere said the passport desk in Canada would continue to issue regular and enhanced passports concurrently.

He said this would continue until “when all our centres would have been fully migrated to the enhanced e-passport.”

(NAN)