Admin l Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019
LAGOS, Nigeria – Trade Union Congress(TUC) has condemned the Federal Government for the decision to sell Nigeria’s international passport for N70,000 to Nigerians. In a statement signed by Comrades Bobboi Bala Kaigama and Musa-Lawal Ozigi, President and Secretary respectively, the TUC said it received the news with alot of shock.
The new price comes into effect March 4th, 2019.
“We have received with shock the move by the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) to raise the price of new International passport to N70, 000 effective for March 4th 2019. This is condemnable and insensitive on the part of the agency.
“Sometimes one wonders where our privileged Nigerians think from. For over two years now we have been fighting for a new wage of N30, 000 without any meaningful breakthrough. Only yesterday we read that the Council of State, who was never a part of the tripartite committee set up by the Federal Government pegged the new wage at N27, 000. By implication if this anti-masses conspiracy is allowed to scale through it then means a civil servant would have to save his salary for three months to be able to pay for a passport. What about feeding, rent, school fees and other utilities bills? This will not work”, the TUC queried.
It noted that why Nigerians are yet to received the new wage, but government and its agencies are already devising numerous avenues to get the money back.
“Who knows what Customs, FRSC, FIRS, etc have in the offing? Most Nigerians who cannot get National Identify Card prefer to use the International Passport for transactions. Unfortunately, that opportunity is about to be scuttled because of greed and avarice.
“If the concern of government is to stop Nigerians from traveling, that may not work as they have failed to make the country habitable by creating jobs, infrastructure, good schools, healthcare, etc. Is it not despicable that Ghana is now doing far better in FDIs? Telling us whenever we ask for a wage increase that the price of crude has dropped is unfair.
“Crude is not our only source of revenue. Nigerians all over the world in their millions renew their International Passports weekly, if not daily. Where is the money? We expect that in this era of integrity there should be accountability’, he said.
The congress condemned in its entirety what the NIS has proposed, and that it may adopt any measure to ensure that the new International passport does not exceed N50, 000.
New 10-year passport to cost N70,000
Cost of new International passport by categories
32-page five-year standard passport at N25,000;
64-page five-year standard passport at N35,000
64-page 10-year standard passport at N70,000;
