The Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, has said that it is “stupid” and “absurd” that the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) asks married women to visit the service’s headquarters in Abuja just to effect a change of name on their passports.
He said this at a recent dinner with members of the Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu (ABAT) Media Centre and some social media influencers in Abuja, The Nation reported.
Tunji-Ojo noted that nowhere else in the world were women subjected to such inhuman treatment.
According to him, NIS personnel in Abuja were not superior to their colleagues in other passport offices across the country to warrant visiting the federal capital over such a trivial matter.
“There is one stupid thing I have seen and it is that a woman gets married, changes her name and then she has to come to Abuja all the way from say Kaura Namoda or Enugu just to come and effect a change of name in her passport. It is absurd.
“I can’t just figure it that you want to change just your name and you have to be in Abuja. I have asked the immigration people, is it that immigration people in Abuja have more than one head than those in the states?” Tunji-Ojo said.
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