Dr. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, Minister of Interior has announced that the present administration has produced over 3.6million International passports since its assumption of office in 2023.
He disclosed this on Wednesday at the ongoing International Civil Service Conference 2026 in Abuja.
According to him, the automation process introduced by the present administration has significantly helped the ministry to clear a backlog of 270,000 passports inherited from the previous administration.
He said: “When we came on board, we inherited over 270,000 backlog of passports, and it was like a miracle for you to get a passport you paid 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, system brings, it enhances efficiency.We cleared a backlog of 270,000 passports of about three years. We’ve cleared it in less than three weeks.
“And today we have been able to produce over 3.6 million passports since we came onboard.”
Tunji-Ojo said that Nigeria can now produce about 10,000 passports per hour, under the new automated process with the establishment of a world-class centralised personalisation centre in Abuja.
He stated that the innovation has marked a major shift in the management of internal security services and public administration.
He further noted that the transformation witnessed in the production and issuance of passports was not accidental but a deliberate push to fix a broken process as well as replace it with one that gives citizens faster and more predictable service.
The passport system, he said, is one of the clearest examples of how public institutions can move from bureaucracy to results when technology is properly deployed.
He also said the new system also reflects a wider principle of governance that he has repeatedly pushed within the ministry: that public service must be judged by outcomes, not excuses.
He added:“In the 21st century, business as usual has no place in public service.Nigerians didn’t invest their trust in us, either as politicians or public servants, to proffer excuses. The only thing that counts and matters is results.”
He maintained that reform must begin with a clear understanding of the problem, saying government must first know “what is” before deciding “what ought to be.”
He stated that the ministry was moving away from a process-centered system to one that puts the experience of the public first.
The minister maintained that the old system of preserving outdated processes must give way to innovation.
“If the usual is what makes you comfortable, then you can never be outstanding and you can never be extraordinary.
“You do not need to be a genius to do what is usual and to do what is normal,” he said.
The Ministry’s achievement in passport production shows what is possible when leadership is willing to confront entrenched habits and demand better systems, he said.
“Visionary leadership is not defined by authority or position, but by the capacity to imagine systems that function better than those inherited.”
He said the reform has transformed passport production from a slow, manual and fragmented process into a system driven by automation, integration and efficiency.
The passport reforms, he said, are proof that with the right systems in place, public institutions can deliver faster services, with stronger control and greater public confidence.
He described the new Abuja centre as a symbol of that shift, saying it demonstrates that Nigeria no longer has to accept delays and inefficiency as normal.
“The era of waiting and bringing corn is gone,” he said, using a local expression to describe the end of unnecessary delays and informal bottlenecks.
“That issue of waiting and bringing corn, that is not us as Nigerians. And the system has been built to solve these problems.”
“For the first time since 1963, we have a world-class centralised personalisation centre in Abuja,
“And what that means is that from a system that could do 400 or 500 passports per hour, in 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,” he said.
The minister said the centre was part of a broader effort to modernise the ministry’s operations and eliminate the inefficiencies that had long plagued passport issuance.
