Passport Price Increase: Infringing The Citizen’s Right, Monetizing A National Symbol

By: Isa Muhammad Inuwa
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RECENT announcement by the Nigerian Immigration Service, NIS, of hiking the price of travellers’ passport to N100, 000 and N200, 000 categories, is reportedly the second time by the President Tinubu regime. It is also the third, if not the fourth time by the APC led-government, both under late Buhari and now under Bola Tinubu regimes.

While the Federal Government of Nigeria may have its reasons (all be it flimsy), yet, the serial hike is a bold and flagrant violation of the Nigeria’s citizen’s right of freedom of movement, even across the borders, to other countries abroad.

For centuries and decades, Nigerians have been known for travelling to different countries for different legitimate purposes and missions, be it educational, health, religious, business, tourism, etc.

Wheresoever an avarage Nigerian citizen goes, his travellers’ passport is his ultimate identity and viable emblem of his origin and nationality. Therefore, there is no reason whatsoever, to make such a national symbol as passport un-affordable for Nigerian citizens.

It sounds baseless, if not dangerous for any responsible nation to think of monetizing and commercialising a very vital document like passport. Doing so, would give room for criminals and violators to take advantage and buy the passport at whatever cost and use it to travel and perpetrate their dubious and criminal deals in countries abroad.

When the passport price is hiked so much, the issue of legitimacy and eligibility is automatically compromised for monetary gains to take the upper hand.

While it would be difficult for the average law-abiding Nigerians to afford it, on the contrary, questionable travellers and impersonators would have their field day to spend handsomely to possess the passport and consequently tarnish Nigeria’s image abroad.

To draw an instance, the same way the government subsidizes the cost of printing and minting of the national currency, it is equally duty bound on the government to sponsor the cost of producing all vital documents, such as the ballot papers, voters’ cards and the national passport, without charging the citizens higher prices for the documents that stand to be part of their citicizinry rights.

Increasing the price of national passport and similar gestures by Nigerian government, is tantamount to shunning from its basic responsibilities, for which it was voted to undertake. More so, the public fund in form of the taxpayers’ money and oil proceeds were used to produce the passport.

Furthermore, how do you expect a Nigerian in the diaspora to show love and concern for a nation of which government he feels he is being cheated or financially exploited, in the name of possessing a passport?

In similar vein, it sounds disgusting to here recently that the government will stop sponsoring the police uniforms. This will make one to wonder  whether the government is systematically undermining the policing system and indirectly promoting corruption. 

Whereby a police has to buy all his uniforms and may be the tools he needs, how vulnerable does one think the nation’s security will be?

The government is therefore better advised to reverse the price increment of Nigeria’s national passport. Only doing so will give the citizens the right and affordability of the document. It will also avert impersonation, forgery and criminalizing the Nigerian passport, which stands as symbol of pride and nationality of every Nigerian, both at home and in the abroad.

Isa Muhammad Inuwa, writes from Kano, Nigeria.