Society Gists

Muhammad Babandede, the Comptroller-General of Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has said that the President Buhari administration is considering extending validity period for international passports from its current 5 years to 10 years.

According  sources, Babandede said this to reporters in his office on Saturday. He added that the announcement will be made in the coming months.

“We have submitted a memo to the president and we believe we’ll get a positive response to that soon,” Babandede said.

He said that this development is in response to several complaints from Nigerians and the international community.

“We have received complaints that passports only take five years. The international community is not happy, wondering why passports will only be five years. They’re saying it should be 10 years and we’re already considering that.

We need to make sure that we have age validity expansion. For example, in some places in the world, they say if you’re below the age of 18, you can have five-year validity passport. But if you’re above the age of 18, you can have 10-year validity because your physical features may not change again within 10 years,” he said.

International Passport validity was reduced from 10 years to 5 years on Jult 27, 2007 when the e-passport was adopted.