By Enyichukwu Enemanna
At least 140,000 international passport booklets are lying in various issuing offices of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) and yet to be claimed by their applicants, the service has announced.
The service while expressing worry over the trend where it is blamed for not meeting up with the production of the essential travel document, cited difficulties in communication and the use of third party agents to apply for the document as the major factors for the increasing number of unclaimed passports.
“Why we are here is a directive from the Comptroller General. He has observed that there are a lot of uncollected passports in all the passport offices. We have about 100,000 unclaimed passports. Apart from that, we still have about 40,000 passports produced recently, all unclaimed.
“This thing is causing us a worry because once you’ve done your own bit and people have not collected it, it causes a worry. It’s based on this that we are not there yet. That is why the CGI set up the committee to make sure the unclaimed passports are clearly given to the owners.
“Again, we came into the field and were able to understand why some were not claimed. What are the reasons we have done the passports and collection has not happened? Before, production was the issue, due to various factors. But now, it is no longer an issue; collection has become the issue now.
“The reason passports are not collected is due to unreliable data: the addresses are incomplete, phone numbers and emails, which are used to quickly reach applicants, are usually not correct. So, communication cannot take place with the applicants, hence no feedback.
“This is because the third party uses his or her own phone number and email address. So, we cannot communicate with the applicants directly to tell them their passports are ready”, the service’s Comptroller General Isah Jere, spoke in Lagos on Wednesday through an Assistant Comptroller General (ACG) in the Migration Directorate of the service, Abdullahi Usman, who also heads a committee on unclaimed passports nationwide.
The Immigration boss during a fact-finding visit to the Alausa Passport Office and the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, both in Ikeja advised applicants who have either lost their slips or forgotten their appointment dates to check Immigration offices where they applied to pick up their passports, urging passport applicants to shun the use of third parties.
He also visited the MMIA Command of the service where Comptroller Adeola Adesokan hinted him on what the NIS hoped to accomplish in the new year.
She gave a breakdown of what the command recorded in 2022 in the number of passengers recorded and the revenue generated.
Adesokan told Usman that last year, the command facilitated 358,953 passengers from January to December and recorded 51,608 passengers arriving via the Visa on Arrival (VOA).
