Aregbesola identifies people undermining issuance of passports

Rauf Aregbesola, Minister of Interior, on Tuesday said few corrupt officials are undermining efforts of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) at sanitising and bringing integrity to passport applications.

Aregbesola, who spoke while inaugurating the NIS passports front office in Oyo, denied that the NIS experienced shortage of passport booklets.

He described reports of passport booklet shortage as “a lie and an excuse by a few corrupt officials of the service to extort the applicants.”

According to him, the unscrupulous people are making the situation difficult by the day and if Nigerians do not tolerate them, they will not exist again.

“They are the ones spreading the rumour that there are no booklets in order to continue to extort the applicants.

“We did not have a shortage of booklets at any given time; we have enough booklets to meet the need of the people.

“There are more than enough booklets in our production schedule,” NAN quoted Aregbesola as saying.

The Minister urged Nigerians to stop patronising the touts and report any NIS officials manipulating applicants for money.

He added that the challenges facing the immigration service were gradually being tackled.