Travellers and passport applicants on Friday commended the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) for extending its official working days to Saturdays.

Stakeholders in Lagos said that the directive would help the agency to clear the backlog of applications for international passports at its disposal.

They added that the personnel of NIS working on Saturdays would be able to meet up with fresh demands within stipulated time.

The NIS on November 27 directed its passport offices across the country to start working on Saturdays to clear the backlog of requests for international passports.

The directive was given by the Comptroller-General of NIS, Idris Jere, then.

Yinka Adebanjo, a traveller who came to renew his passport at the Ikoyi Passport Office, Lagos, commended NIS over the directive.

He, however, said that the directive should have come earlier to guard against the agency having a huge backlog of international passports.

He said that some of the applicants who were not able to access their passports then would have given up.

He also commended the NIS boss for not hesitating to deal with the bad eggs in the service.

Lovelyn Apata, a fresh applicant, at the Ikoyi Passport office, advised the NIS to urgently establish a unit that would oversee the directive and bring it to success.

Paul Nworah, at Festac Passport Office, advised the personnel of NIS to work diligently to enable it to meet its mandate to Nigerians.

“We all know that the extension of the workdays to include Saturdays will not be easy, especially, in this era of fuel scarcity.

“However, what needed to have been done must not be delayed further,” he said.

Alfa Mohammed, at the service’s passport production office at Ikeja in Lagos, advised the NIS boss to make the extension permanent.

(NAN)