New e-passport takes off Friday

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <div class="story-featured-image" style="border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); float: left; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-right: 15px; width: 368px;"> <img alt="President Goodluck Jonathan" class="attachment-bigstoryimage" height="225" scale="0" src="http://www.punchng.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/President-Goodluck-Jonathan1-360x225.jpg" style="border: none; float: left; margin-right: 10px; padding: 4px;" width="360" /><div class="featured-image-caption" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 5px; padding: 5px 10px 0px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">President Goodluck Jonathan<br /><small style="font-weight: normal;"><em>| credits: File copy</em></small></span></div> </div> <div id="nrelate_flyout_placeholder"> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">President Goodluck Jonathan on Wednesday inaugurated Nigeria’s new 64-page e-passport with a call on Nigerians to protect the image of the country by shunning uncomplimentary statements and actions.</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Jonathan launched the traveling document shortly before the commencement of the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">He and Vice President Namadi Sambo later took turns to be captured in order to be issued with the new traveling document. The new passport takes effect from August 1 (tomorrow).</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Jonathan said Nigerians must be ready to work hard in order to improve the image of the country.</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The President said, “The issue of the image of the country is what we will all work for, people in government, the media and the civil society.</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“I always say that when people continue to paint their country with all kinds of colours, that is the way they will associate those colours with your green passport.</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“I want a situation that whenever you travel to another country and you raise your green passport, people will appreciate you and not when you raise your green passport, people will begin to think that that green passport signified some suspicious character.</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“We are not helping ourselves when we paint ourselves the colours that we are not supposed to bear.</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“I wish to continue to appeal to all Nigerians that we must all collectively learn how we do our things, statements that we make, to paint brighter colours for our green passport.”</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The President said the pages of the traveling document had to be increased from 32 to 64 to cater for frequent travellers who change their passport almost every other month because of limited pages for visa.</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">He urged officials of the Nigeria Immigration Service to protect the integrity of the passport by ensuring that it would be difficult for anybody to fake it.</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Jonathan also asked officials who man the nation’s airports to ensure that they conduct themselves in a manner that would portray the country well before visitors.</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">He added, “I always sympathise with those who travel almost on a weekly basis, changing passport every month, at least we have moved a step forward. The key thing is for us to have a robust relationship with key countries so that some of these frequent travellers may not need visas and that will really help us more.</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“One thing one must know today is that it is not the issue of 64-page passport that is key to Nigerians but the security. If our passport could be easily faked by criminals, then we will have problems.</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“One thing again is that how can Nigerians get passport easily especially those living outside this country?”</span></div> <div> <br /></div> </div> </div>

New e-passport takes off Friday

President Goodluck Jonathan | credits: File copy President Goodluck Jonathan on Wednesday inaugurated Nigeria’s new 64-page e-passpor...

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