The Nigerian government on Tuesday 9th March 2021 has launched a replacement for the Emergency Travel certificate with an electronic Temporary Passport.

The Honourable Minister of Interior,  Rauf Aregbesola, gave the reason in engagements.

“It is a replacement for the hitherto Emergency Travel Certificate (ETC) which was issued to Nigerians in emergency situations where their Passports were not available and had the need to travel to Nigeria.

“This new document is not a replacement for the Nigerian Passport; it will only serve a temporary purpose in the case of loss or misplacement of the Nigerian Passport by a Nigerian abroad.

“In the light of the present security challenges faced by the country, the Temporary Passport will no doubt help to checkmate the excess of criminal elements that takes advantage of the ETC to infiltrate the country,” he said.

The latest Passport is ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) compliant and is valid for only one month as well as coming to end of the challenge of obtaining a full and complete passport.

“We are putting measures in place that will make it very easy to obtain the passport, once they come to fruition,” he added.

Representing the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Geoffrey Onyema was the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Mr Gabriel Aduda,

He said, “This is a commendable achievement not just to the Nigerian Immigration Service but the country as a whole,”

Adding his voice to new scheme by the Mr. Muhammad Babandede, Comptroller-General of NIS, said – “Embassies have been complaining to us on our temporary passport which does not have a database or biometric features. This, however, has been a huge security threat to us and the host country.

“The temporary passport is a document with blue colour and contains four pages which has passport photograph inside.

“ It has enhanced our data system that means, it is connected to our data page and there is an end to end connectivity with what is captured and what is in our data page,”

End.