The Nigerian Immigration Service has expressed worry over the number of unclaimed passport booklets in its custody in Ondo and Ekiti states, calling on the applicants in the two states to urgently visit its offices to collect the passports they applied for.
The Assistant Comptroller-General of Immigration in charge of Land Border, Emmanuel Fagbamigbe, who disclosed this to newsmen in Akure, Ondo State capital, said about 5000 uncollected passport booklets are lying unclaimed the state Command.
He explained that about 2000 passport booklets are unclaimed in Ondo state and 3000 in Ekiti state , saying the booklets had been accumulating steadily since 2017, noting many of the passports will expire in the next few months
He said despite all sending messages sent to the applicants to pick up their passports booklets, some applicants have refused to visit the NIS offices to collect their passports.
He said “The Immigration high command noticed the trend in passport production and issuance. We noticed that over the years, there has been steady accumulation of produced passport booklets.
“Hitherto, when passport are produced, we send bulk message to the applicants to come and pick their passports. But despite this effort, we noticed the steady accumulation of passport booklets.
“The Immigration high command is alarm and the Minister of Interior. Due to the development, I was told to come to Ondo and Ekiti States to come and see how this trend will be reversed.
“Immediately I came, we swung into action, we started calling individual passport applicant. With this method people have started to come and we have already having crowd coming to claim their passport booklets.
“This accumulation started years back, since 2017 and the accumulation has been steady. In Ekiti State we have about 3000 booklets. In Ondo we have about 2000. We are determined to make sure that we reduce this to the bearest minimum possible”
He said the service had been exploring other means of solving the accumulation, particularly that the country no longer face the issue of non-availability of booklets.
“Before now, booklets were not readily available but thanks to the the Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and the Comptroller-General of Immigration for making it easy. Before now we were not having booklets ready but now we are having accumulation. That means passport booklets are available.
“The service is exploring lots of options to getting the booklets to applicants. Nigeria is growing and maybe when we get to the level of Great Britain and USA things will be better. How well can we trust the posting process? How well are we sure that the booklets will not be lost in transit? If you can come here for capturing, how come you cannot just come to pick your passport?
“Passport accumulation is strange to our system. Now it is immigration producing and people are not coming to pick it up. So we are trying to devise means and we decided that this time around we will call, and the approach has been working beautifully well.
“When an applicant gets the file ready, it will take six weeks for it to be ready for fresh applicant and it will take three weeks for those who want to renew.”
