The Nigerian immigration service (NIS) has declared that a State of origin is now required for passport renewal applications.

This was posted on the Nigerian immigration service’s X platform on Saturday, 20th April 2024.

It stated, “For your claim of being a Nigerian citizen to hold water, there has to be a document that “ties” you to a local government (indigenous area) within the country. This document is what we request that applicants present to us, amongst others, to authenticate their claim of being a citizen.”

NIS added that passport applicants do not necessarily need to travel to their state of origin to get the ‘indigenship document.’

It states, “You DO NOT necessarily NEED to go to your state of origin to get the indigenship document”. We are aware that most states have liaison offices in other states.

For example, Anambra state has liaison offices in Lagos (Eti-Osa) and Abuja (Asokoro). These offices are empowered to issue such documents.

NIS further said, “every document that the Service requires from passport applicants to produce/submit/upload was carefully thought through (NOT stupid) and backed by certain laws and policy documents approved by the Federal Government through our supervising ministry – in this case, the Ministry of Interior.”