Nigerian passports ranked as the 10th worst travel document in the after in recent global survey

NIGERIA'S passport has been ranked 191 out of 199 surveyed globally making it the 10th worst travel document worldwide a recent poll just conducted by  VisaGuide’s World Passport Index.

According to the report, as of April this year, the Nigerian passport only finished above those of North Korea (192), Iraq (193), Libya (194), Sudan (195), Pakistan (196), Afghanistan (197), Syria (198) and Somalia (199). This index is a passport ranking system that uses the destination significance score (DSS) for assessing and ranking the passports of countries and territories.

Such rankings are usually based on various factors to determine their strength and assign a unique value to each passport. In the latest index, the Singaporean passport came first on the chart as the strongest in the world, followed by the Italian passport, with the Spanish, French and German passports ranked as third, fourth, and fifth respectively.

The report read: “To reach a unique ranking, we assign a value, which we call destination significance score (DSS), to each travel destination. A unique DSS value is assigned to each destination based on the entry policy it enforces on the passport, GDP, power index, tourism index and human development index (HDI), among other factors.

"The DSS is multiplied with the value of the visa requirement of the destination country toward the selected passport holders. Other factors are visa-free travel, electronic travel authorisation, visa on arrival, electronic visa (e-visa), embassy or other government-approved visas, passport-free travel, and banned entry.

It also noted that since destination countries are each assigned a unique DSS, being able to travel visa-free to a destination with a higher DSS gives the selected passport a higher value than having visa-free access to a country with a lower one. In addition, the report also mentioned that after all factions were calculated, each passport had its unique value, with no two countries having the same number of visa-free destinations.