The Ministry of Interior has announced new measures geared toward swift issuance of new passport and renewal of expired passports involving Nigerians.

The Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, announced on Saturday, the launch of Temporary Passport (TP), as a replacement of the former Emergency Travel Certificate. He also disclosed that the Ministry has initiated a special Passport Intervention exercise, to mitigate the strains of passport renewal on Nigerians abroad, especially those caught up in lockdowns.

Aregbesola said the Ministry has also approved front offices at the airports, where Nigerians who arrive in the country with expired passports can have their passports renewed immediately.

Nigerian Passport issuance has long been riddled with bottlenecks, with the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) always having scarcity of leaflets to blame. Over two weeks ago, the issue brewed out of proportion following overwhelming complaints from Nigerians, prompting the intervention of the Minister of Interior. He then promised to put an end to the crisis.

He said other measures are also being taken to totally mitigate the hassles in passport renewal.

Full statement below:

“Today, I made a presentation on the new protocol for Nigerians in Diaspora for obtaining International Passport, at the Inaugural Quarterly Lecture Series of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, NiDCOM.

“The Ministry of Interior in conjunction with the Nigerian Immigration Services has been at the forefront of evolving measures to mitigate the effect of Covid19 on Nigerians living and doing business abroad. Prominent amongst the measures include:

“a. The recent launch of the Temporary Passport (TP): This replaces the former Emergency Travel Certificate. It is to ease the burden on Nigerians whose passports have expired and need to travel to Nigeria. It is a one way travel document which must be surrendered on arrival.

“b. The Ministry also recently approved a special Passport Intervention exercise: this exercise is targeted at Nigerians citizens residing in the most affected countries Europe where the lockdown due to the raging infection has affected both economic and social activities. This exercise will enable personnel of the NIS meet these Nigerians at their places of residence and get them enrolled for passport by deploying the Mobile enrollment Unit.

“c. It will also interest you to know that the NIS also recently approved the revalidation of all payments for Passports made by Nigerians sequel to the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic. This is to enable the Service conclude action on all pending Passport applications.

“d. Recently approved for take-off, is the establishment of front offices at some selected international airports in Nigeria. These airports are: The murtala Mohammed International airport Lagos, Nnamdi Azikiwe International airport Abuja,Mallam Aminu Kano International airport, Kano and the Port Harcourt International airport, Rivers state. The front office is a new concept which is aimed at helping Nigerians who arrive the country on expired passports to have their passports renewed immediately at these airports.

“It is in this regard that the NIS recently granted a waiver for Nigerians with expired passports desirous of coming to Nigeria to do so without fear of harassment by airlines.

“To ensure effective service delivery to Nigerians, we have recently reviewed the passport issuing process with a view to streamlining the process for better performance while also eliminating the activities of touts who in recent times have portrayed the NIS in bad light.”

I am happy to announce that Tekedia Institute is introducing a new course titled “Satellite Broadband Age in Nigeria, Africa: Business Opportunities, Mapping New Markets and Rural Economies”. This is coming after the redesign which SpaceX Starlink is bringing to Nigeria and Africa. Just as GSM unlocked new business opportunities when it came, satellite broadband will seed new markets and advance rural economies across the continent. 

The course would be taught by himself and a veteran of the satellite industry. John Enoh founded a satellite company in Texas called Beeptool. And he currently uses SpaceX Starlink and can talk about it. Mine is coming hopefully next month.

Joseph Ibeh, a satellite industry analyst with Northern Sky Research joins the faculty and will be working with us on this course.

The focus of this course is to look at latent opportunities which satellite broadband could make evident. As always, I invite you to join us at our school. We bring uncommon freshness and relevance on business education in Africa. Register today and beat the early bird deadline for Tekedia Mini-MBA edition 4. The program begins June 7 to end Sept 1, 2021.

Tekedia Institute offers an innovation management 12-week program, optimized for business execution and growth, with digital operational overlay. It runs 100% online. The theme is Innovation, Growth & Digital Execution – Techniques for Building Category-King Companies. All contents are self-paced, recorded and archived which means participants do not have to be at any scheduled time to consume contents.

Good People, with the conclusion of Tekedia Mini-MBA edition 4 yesterday, the Certificates are now ready. Please email Admin for yours. You will receive a link to download it. I will be expecting your LinkedIn tag as you share. All certificates are automatically verifiable: just use the code on the certificate at tekedia.com/verify .

And the biggest part: from all samples, Tekedia Mini-MBA edition 4 received a rating of 4.9/5.0.  To our members here, we hope you feel the same way. Remember, you have access to all course contents till Feb 2022. So, take time and go through them again.

Plus: try to share your Lab 3 with your supervisor at work. One of us is relocating from Port Harcourt to Lagos after he presented his Lab 3 which he did on his company. Now, he has to execute the playbook in the corporate headquarters.

I want to thank all members for the opportunity to co-share and co-learn at Tekedia Institute. The next edition will be better as we introduce courses on AfCFTA, Digital Commerce, Pricing Strategies, Formation of missions, etc.

Congratulations again.

On June 8, 2017, Ndubuisi Ekekwe made a video and wrote:

“In today’s videocast, I make a case that Africa will enter the era of affordable broadband internet in 2022. That will be the year we will begin a new dawn of immersive connectivity where you can eat and surf all you can. Industry players will take off the Internet meter and then focus on service, experience and quality.

“From satellite broadband vendors to the MNCs with balloons and drones, the sector will become very competitive and service will drive growth. This has happened in the past – every decade, Africa experiences a major industrial transformation. We saw that in banking and voice telephony. 2020s, starting at 2022, will be the decade of immersive connectivity.”

As SpaceX Starlink arrives, that call is coming to pass! June 2017 seems to be a long time ago. I went to my village in Dec 2019 and the internet was bad. I was not happy. Luckily MTN came to the rescue, and broadband worked just fine while I was home. And before I left Ovim, three families offered free sites for masts. Imagine what broadband would do to Oriendu Market in Ovim. Imagine what it would do in your own village and community. This is the age of acceleration of value; a moment for optimism.

Watch that video again.