Document will now be valid for 10 years, as long as you can pay more

The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has disclosed that the validity of Nigerian passports will be extended from five to 10 years.

This was disclosed by the agency's Comptroller-General, Muhammed Babandede, when he visited the Ikoyi passport office in Lagos, on Thursday, July 26, 2018.

Babandede said President Muhammadu Buhari has given directives to extend the validity period to ease the stress of renewing passports. He also noted that the extension will incur more costs for Nigerians who get the passports.

He said, "He (Buhari) has approved 10-year validity for passports which is great news. When the report comes, passports will be valid for 10 years which is great news especially for adults from the age of 18 and above.

"Though people will pay more, if they can pay more and get the booklets quickly, it's good with improved security for 10 years validity. They would pay more but the document would be available, that's good.

"Ten years after the enrolment of the e-passport system, we need to improve the security features. You can't keep documents for 10 years without seeing decreased values in them, so we are improving the security features which would raise the standards of the passports."

A flurry of complaints by Nigerians and the international community about the short validity period of five years compelled Immigrations to submit a memo about it to President Buhari as far back as 2016.

In 2007, the federal government implemented a downward review of passports from 10 to five years after the adoption of the e-passport.