Nigeria’s immigration service has finalised plans to introduce the harmonised Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) passport in addition to issuing an ePassport.

The decision to issue an ECOWAS passport was driven by the need to check multiple identities. The harmonised ECOWAS passport will be printed in three colours: red for diplomatic passports, blue for official ones and green for standard ones.

According to, Joseph Udeh, comptroller general of Nigeria’s Immigration Service, the new ePassports will be issued from 25 July, when the Nigerian president will make it a legal document. “Rollout of the ePassport does not mean we will invalidate machine-readable passports, or that we will stop issuing them,” he told local reporters. “Both types will run together for about 12 months before we stop issuing machine-readable passports."