With the use of an automated application system, Nigeria’s Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, claims the government saved millions of naira.

He proposed a number of measures aimed at modernizing the nation’s immigration services.

The minister also revealed intentions to streamline passport applications, start passport home delivery, and install cutting-edge passenger information systems at airports while appearing as a guest on an O’tega Ogra YouTube interview series that was published on Saturday.

He said, “When we came on board in August last year, it was about stock-taking because I always say this, as a professional, you spend more time planning so that execution can be pretty easy and we’ve been able to do that across all our agencies and today, the short-term goals that we had for ourselves we’ve been able to achieve that.

“For example, in Immigration, the short-term goals include clearing our backlog of over 204,000 passports that we inherited, we cleared that in slightly over two weeks, less than three weeks we’re able to do that and under President Bola Tinubu, we made sure that passport backlog has become something of the past that will never happen again.

“We went through our automation process which is basically broken into three different stages but in terms of our short-term target, it’s achieving the first two then the midterm target is, of course, the third one which is where we are now.

“We’ve achieved the first one, which is, of course, automating the application process that has started saving the government billions of naira because I’ll give you an example. We used to pay for archiving of documents, but today, we have automated that process that applicants now upload by themselves.

“When you calculate that, for archiving alone which is about N200 that we used to pay per applicant and by about three million passports a year, that’s about N600 million. So, we have saved the government of that money and yet it’s even more convenient for people because people can now do that on their own and we moved now to the stage of even uploading passports and all these other things.”

The ministry’s home delivery system for passports is “about to go live in the next couple of days,” he continued. The minister also emphasized the use of the Passenger Name Record (PNR) and Advanced Passenger Information (API) systems, which enable immigration officers to pre-profile visitors prior to their arrival in Nigeria. “Our scrutiny is now objective when you enter Nigeria,” he clarified.

“What it means is that if you’re a terrorist or you have a questionable background, you can’t come into Nigeria. So we’ve been able to do that, and as I speak with you, the command and control centre for the air border control management system is 100% ready. If you get to NIS headquarters, you will see it.

“Just two weeks ago IATA came all the way from their headquarters in Canada and they took a facility tour you know of the of this facility and the IATA representative said it clearly that this is one of the best command and control centre any anywhere in the world. That makes me happy as a Nigerian,” he added.

The Nigerian Ministry of Interior has been plagued by numerous forms of corruption up until recently, especially when it comes to the issuing of new or reissued passports. Not less than 8 Nigerian Immigration Service officers and men were dismissed from service in May 2023 for engaging in the unlawful collection of fees related to passport matters, while over eighty more officials were put on trial for the same offence in the same year.

The minister said that the latest reforms are a part of the government’s attempts to make doing business in Nigeria easier and to strengthen national security.

A crisis team entrusted with handling the situation stated on Saturday that Egypt had revoked the operational licenses of sixteen tourism companies and reported them to the public prosecutor, accusing them of being accountable for the deaths of Egyptian pilgrims in Mecca.

At least 530 Egyptians are said to have died during this year’s haj pilgrimage to Mecca, according to medical and security sources. A statement from the unit, led by Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly and established on Thursday, stated that 31 deaths were proven to be related to chronic sickness.

The statement added without naming the travel agencies that helped the deceased get around did not offer them any services at all, including medical assistance.

The agencies are held accountable for bringing pilgrims to Saudi Arabia on visas intended for personal visits rather than those necessary for haj, which grants entry to Mecca, the site of the haj.

Personal visa holders are not eligible for the medical treatments provided by Saudi authorities to ease the challenges of the pilgrimage. The statement further stated that to escape being arrested or deported, the pilgrims who perished had to go over the desert into Mecca.

Additionally, according to Egyptian authorities, those tour companies failed to provide the pilgrims with “appropriate accommodation,” which contributed to their “exhaustion due to the high temperatures.”

Authorities in Egypt have also recorded 31 deaths among Egyptian pilgrims who have registered, with “chronic diseases” listed as the reason for death. The statement stated that the majority of the deceased were not registered.

Egypt’s Northern Africa neighbour, Tunisia fired Minister of Religious Affairs, Brahim Chaibi after reports that forty-nine pilgrims died the the same disaster.

The Hajj, which takes place in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, is the holiest pilgrimage in Islam. Terrorist attacks and stampedes are only two of the many deadly events that have occurred there recently.

Due to the Saudi kingdom’s mandated dramatic reduction in participation, only a few thousand people could take part in 2020—a far cry from the 2.5 million believers who did so in 2019.

Over 1.8 million pilgrims completed the hajj last year, according to government statistics, following the lifting of restrictions during the plague. Recently, hundreds of individuals from many nations have perished in the harsh conditions of the Saudi city during the Haj, when temperatures have occasionally risen above 51 degrees Celsius (124 Fahrenheit).