The home delivery of Nigerian passports will begin in June, says Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo.
Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, made this announcement on Friday when he inspected the electronic gates at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport’s new terminal in Abuja.
He, however, said the home delivery will only be in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kano, and Abuja.
He also said home delivery would initially launch for Nigerians in diaspora in the United States and the United Kingdom
He said home delivery should have started but for lack of a data centre.
He said: “We have completed the whole solution but when we came on board, we realised that the data centre was not really there.
We were leveraging on a private company data centre and we appreciate them for that assistance. We think that it is better to create a permanent solution to problems rather than quick fixes.
“We could have done it in February but we had to build our data centre from scratch to be able to keep the integrity of our data and national security intact.
This is more important. It is disgraceful that NIS is 61 years old and NIS is a custodian of biometric data of Nigeria and we believe that NIS should be in charge of the data of Nigeria.
“It is not acceptable that this data is domiciled in a third party and that is why we have been able to do this”.
He added: “It is about national security and I can assure you that It is comparable with anyone you can find anywhere in the world.
“We have built the data centre, sorted the passport delivery solution and done the final presentation in terms of technology deliverables and the tracking solution which will all be embedded in the application we have so we do not create multiple lines of failure”