The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) on Thursday said married women are not required to travel to the Federal Capital in Abuja for name changes when applying for their passports.
The Acting Comptroller General of Immigration, Wuraola Adepoju made the statement while featuring on Channels Television’s programme ‘Sunrise Daily’.
According to her, while there is waiver granted to women that are married to change their name, those who wanted to change their date of birth may be required to come to Abuja to answer questions as to why they want to do so.
She said “Married women do not have to come to the Federal Capital for name changes. Anybody that is married, there is a waiver for them. All along, married women do not have to come to Abuja. There is a gap there”.
“It is indeed true that when you require data changes, you may need to come to Abuja because for example, if you are coming, you have given a set of names and your date of birth. All these are important documents”.
” If you suddenly wake up one day and you say you want to change your name, it is understandable. You can change your name. You have the right to bear whatever name you want but you cannot change your date of birth. Your identity is frozen once you apply for the Nigerian e- passport”.
“When you now make a request that you want to change your name, we want to know why. But as for married women, the rule does not apply to them at all”.
 on Thursday said married women are not required to travel to the Federal Capital in Abuja for name changes when applying for their passports.){kind=link}