Photo Rejected — What to Fix for Nigeria

Three things cause most rejections in Nigeria: the wrong type of document, a photo of a screen instead of the real document, or the MRZ at the bottom of the passport coming out blurry.

How to fix

1. Use an accepted document. NIN slip (paper printout with barcode) and voter card are not accepted as ID — the system rejects them automatically. Use one of these instead:

• International passport (booklet with photo and MRZ at the bottom)
• Driver’s license
• NIMC chip card — the plastic card, not the paper slip

If you only have the NIN slip, get the chip card from a NIMC office, or use your passport.

2. Photograph the real document, not a screen. A common silent reject: shooting the passport while it’s shown on another phone, or re-shooting a screenshot. The system detects screen pixels and rejects.

• Hold the physical document in front of the camera
• Take it out of any plastic sleeve first
• Do not upload a screenshot

3. Make the bottom of the passport sharp. The two lines at the bottom (the MRZ) must be sharp enough to read. This fails most often on Nigerian passports.

• Move the phone closer so the passport fills almost the whole frame
• Tap the MRZ lines in the camera preview to lock focus there
• Use daylight near a window — indoor bulb light causes blur
• Hold steady for one second after tapping; rushing blurs the text

Zoom in on the bottom strip after the shot. If you cannot read it yourself, the system cannot either — retake.

Watch out for

• Retrying with the same NIN slip or voter card — retakes won’t turn it into an accepted document
• Plastic sleeves or laminate covers — faint reflections break OCR
• Re-uploading the same image — if it failed once, it will fail again. Retake in better light
• All four corners visible but MRZ still soft — that’s focus, not framing. Tap the bottom strip before shooting