The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project has asked President Bola Tinubu to order an immediate reversal of the new passport fees announced by the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), describing the increase as arbitrary, unlawful, and a violation of citizens’ human rights.
The NIS last week announced that from September 1, 2025, Nigerians will pay N100,000 for a 32-page passport booklet with five-year validity and N200,000 for a 64-page booklet with ten-year validity. The decision comes barely a year after a similar increment in September 2024.
In a letter dated August 30, 2025, and signed by its deputy director, Kolawole Oluwadare, SERAP said the hike would deny millions of poor and vulnerable Nigerians access to passports and unlawfully restrict their constitutional rights.
“The unlawfully high fees amount to a discriminatory denial of access to a passport to millions of socially and economically vulnerable Nigerians and unlawful restrictions of their other citizenship rights,” the letter read.
SERAP argued that the new charges are excessive, disproportionate, and incompatible with Chapters 2 and 4 of the 1999 Constitution, which guarantee fundamental rights and directive principles of state policy.
It also warned that the measures would worsen the hardship of citizens struggling with economic challenges.
“The increased fees will hit hardest those at the bottom of the economy,” SERAP stated, adding that the Interior Minister, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, and the Comptroller General of Immigration, Kemi Nandap, failed to consider the financial conditions of millions of Nigerians before approving the hike.
The organisation threatened legal action should the government fail to reverse the decision within seven days.
