Inside Tunji-Ojo’s Ministry Overhaul

When senators begin praising airport immigration desks, something has shifted.

On February 17, 2026, during the Interior Ministry’s budget defence, the joint committees of the Senate and House commended Minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo for reforms they described as far-reaching. And even though the session was routine on paper, the tone was not.

Senator Adams Oshiomhole spoke of visible improvements at airports and within the Nigeria Immigration Service. Lawmakers acknowledged that more work remains, yet they pointed to measurable progress across key agencies.

In early February, the ministry completed the transition to a Single Centralised Passport Personalisation Centre in Abuja. Fragmented production that lasted 62 years ended quietly. Daily capacity rose from roughly 300 passports to about 5,000. Digital layers followed. A new tracking update now marks passports as “produced, ready for collection.” Expatriate quota applications moved onto a platform that allows companies to monitor submissions without travelling to Abuja. Contactless services are expanding across the South East and selected European missions.

These changes build on earlier groundwork. In 2023, Tunji-Ojo inherited a backlog of more than 200,000 passports. Clearance became urgent. By late 2024, over 50,000 paramilitary officers had received delayed promotions, stabilising agencies often strained by morale and attrition.

But February also exposed strain. During the same budget appearance, the minister disclosed that none of the capital allocations approved for 2024 and 2025 had been released. Surveillance upgrades and correctional infrastructure projects now sit in limbo.

Lawmakers expressed dissatisfaction with the Treasury, describing the funding gap as a risk to national security. The applause, then, coexists with fiscal constraint.

Additional responsibilities are accumulating. The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps has been directed to assume expanded VIP protection duties. After fire incidents in Kano, the Federal Fire Service was tasked with leading a specialised response assessment.The ministry’s evolution has been incremental rather than theatrical, with backlogs reduced, systems consolidated, data centralised, officers promoted, and budget battles publicised. For a department once associated with queues and paper files, legislative praise now hinges on processing speed, digital architecture, and interagency coordination.