For many Nigerians living abroad, renewing a Nigerian passport was once a task dreaded almost as much as losing the passport itself.
That was why I was initially sceptical when I began hearing claims that Nigerians in the United Kingdom could now renew their passports from home and receive them at their doorsteps within days.
It sounded too good to be true.
So I travelled across several cities in the UK and spoke with Nigerians who had firsthand experiences with the contactless passport renewal system introduced by the Nigeria Immigration service and Ministry of Interior, under Comptroller General, Kemi Nanna Nandap, and Minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo.
What I found was not just a few isolated success stories. From Birmingham to Coventry, Newport, Leeds, Essex and London, the accounts were remarkably similar. Nigerians who once spent months waiting for passports were now speaking about processing applications from their living rooms and receiving new passports at their doorsteps within days.
For once, the conversation was not about complaints. It was about satisfaction.
One of the people I met was Timileyin Gbenga, a community leader based in Birmingham. He recalled his experience under the old system.
He told me that his previous passport renewal took more than six months from application to collection. The process required travelling from Birmingham to London for biometrics and enduring lengthy delays before the document was eventually issued.
When he recently helped a family member use the contactless system, however, the outcome was completely different.
According to him, the passport arrived in less than two weeks.
That contrast captures the essence of the reform.
For years, distance was one of the greatest obstacles facing Nigerians in the diaspora. Regardless of whether an applicant lived in Birmingham, Leeds, Cardiff or Manchester, travelling to London was often unavoidable. Transport costs, accommodation expenses and time away from work were all part of the hidden costs of passport renewal.
The contactless system appears to have eliminated much of that burden.
In Essex, Adeku Adeola Victoria described completing her passport renewal entirely from home.
She said she received her passport roughly a week after applying and was so impressed by the process that she encouraged a friend to abandon plans to travel to London and instead apply online. Her friend also received her passport within two weeks.
In Newport, South Wales, another Nigerian, Adiku Adeyemi, shared a similar experience involving his wife’s passport renewal. The document, he said, was delivered directly to their home just days after registration.
As I listened to these stories, one thing became clear: the excitement was not solely about speed. It was about dignity and convenience.
Government services are not supposed to be endurance tests. Citizens should not have to sacrifice workdays, spend hundreds of pounds on transport or navigate unnecessary bureaucracy to obtain basic documents.
The real achievement of the reform is that it is bringing service delivery closer to what citizens reasonably expect in the digital age.
The most striking testimonies came from Coventry and Leeds.
Mr Rufus Idowu, an automation engineer with Royal Mail and a community leader in Coventry, said some Nigerians received their passports within five days.
Comrade Adebayo Segun in Leeds told me that he obtained his son’s passport in just four days, a timeline he described as unprecedented in his experience in dealing with Nigerian government services.
Whether every application is completed within four or five days is not the point. What matters is that such turnaround times are now possible at all.
For decades, passport delays have been one of the most persistent complaints among Nigerians abroad. Missed travel plans, expired documents and endless uncertainty became commonplace.
The fact that many applicants now measure processing times in days rather than months represents a significant shift.
Perhaps the most interesting perspective came from Dr. Adekunle Shonola, President of Nigerians in Coventry and a senior lecturer in Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics at Coventry University.
As someone familiar with both British and Nigerian systems, he believes Nigeria is finally moving closer to international standards in passport administration.
He recalled the days when applicants travelled repeatedly between Coventry and London for biometrics and passport collection, often waiting more than six months.
Today, he says, members of his community are receiving passports within a week.
