Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo has said that the era of delays in the issuance of passports were over with the centralisation of the production in Abuja. The minister, who disclosed that the government now produces 10,000 passports per hour, made this disclosure yesterday at the International Civil Service Conference held in Abuja.

According to him, the reforms in the ministry have transformed passport production from a slow, manual and fragmented process into a system driven by automation, integration and efficiency. Tunji-Ojo said the country now has a world class centralised personalisation centre for the first time since 1963.

“What that means is that from a system that could do 400 or 500 passports per hour, all over the world, we could barely do three, four thousand a day or per hour. Today, we are in a position to do nothing less than 10,000 passports per hour with a centralised level of control.”

According to him, the old system left room for delays, duplication and unnecessary contact between applicants and officials, a situation he said was no longer acceptable in a digital age. “When we came aboard, we inherited over 200,000 backlogs of passports, and it was like it was a miracle for you to get a passport you pay for. But today, to the glory of God, we started that, we automated the process.

Let people speak to systems, not people speaking to people. When people speak to systems, it enhances efficiency.” Tunji-Ojo said the automation drive has helped the ministry clear a 270,000 backlog in three weeks disclosing that the ministry has since produced 3.6 million passports since he came on board.

He added that the new system also reflected a wider principle of governance that he has repeatedly pushed within the ministry: that public service must be judged by outcomes, not excuses. The minister said the ministry’s achievement in passport production showed what was possible when leadership was willing to confront entrenched habits and demand better systems.