Minister of Interior Rauf Aregbesola has attributed the high demand for passports in the past few years to the massive exodus of Nigerians out of the country in search of greener pastures.

He made the disclosure in Abuja on Thursday at the 64th session of the State House Ministerial briefing organised by the Presidential Communications Team at the Aso Presidential Villa.

According to the minister, 9.31 million passports were processed and issued by the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) from 2015 to 2022, with over 1.8 million passports recorded in 2022 alone.

The service processed and issued 941,995, in 2015 while 1,035,668 were issued in 2016. The number of passports for 2017 was 1,136,855.

A total of 1,242,953 and 780,047 passports were issued respectively in 2018 and 2019, while 1,056,422 and 1,899,683 passports were processed and issued in 2020 and 2021.