Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) has said about 140,000 international passports are yet to be collected nationwide.
The Service’s spokesman, Deputy Comptroller of Immigration Service (DCI), Tony Akuneme said this when he paid an official visit to the Alausa Passport office, Ikeja, Lagos state, Southwest Nigeria.
Akuneme in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), said about 40,000 of the total 140,000 are in the Alausa Passport office .
The service spokesperson said majority of the uncollected passports had wrong phone contacts and untraceable addresses.
He, therefore, implored applicants to process their international passports by themselves, using correct details and without involving racketeers.
Akuneme noted that it was wrong perception, to say that getting fresh or renewing international passport was very difficult.
He said, “In spite of the extensive awareness embarked on by NIS on passport application and its processes, some Nigerians still patronise racketeers or consultants to process their passports, which usually does not work out well.
”Some applicants are gullible, they fell into the hands of touts who duped them of their hard-earned money.”
He pleaded with citizens to visit https://passport.immigration.gov.ng/application, to process their passports themselves.
Akuneme said, “I still want to emphatically plead with passport seekers not to use consultants, racketeers, nor masqueraders while processing their international passports.
”Most of the contact numbers inputted by these unethical human beings are not real.”
He further advised applicants, who had applied before July 2022 and were unable to obtain their passports to visit the NIS website to lodge a complaint.
