The Presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), in the 2023 election, Mr Peter Obi, has said that Nigeria under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has achieved the feat of probably being the only country in the world where the cost of international passport is far higher than the minimum wage.
Obi, who took to his X handle on Thursday night, stressed that the obsession of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led administration with mounting more burden on the populace is becoming legendary and continues to reveal its apparent disconnect with the people and the suffering.
He said that instead of making life easier for the citizens, the Tinubu-led government keeps shifting the burden to ordinary Nigerians, stressing that it was alarming that the price of the international passport is higher than what workers earn in a month.
Obi, who stated these while criticising the Federal Government’s decision to increase the cost of Nigerian passports, lamented that the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led government has continued to increase the burden of Nigerians.
He noted that at N100,000 for a 32-page booklet, the Nigerian international passport has become higher than the minimum wage of N70,000, while that of a 64-page booklet was further jacked up to N200,000.
In the words of Obi; “The International Passport fees in Nigeria have now skyrocketed to ₦100,000 for a 32-page booklet and ₦200,000 for 64 pages. This is the third increase in just two years.
“In a country where the new minimum wage is only ₦70,000, the cost of a single passport now exceeds a worker’s monthly salary, probably the only country in the world to achieve this feat,” he emphasised.
