140,000 international passport booklets unclaimed, says Immigration

• Published date: 12 January 2023
• Publication title: Nigeria - The Nation

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The Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) has said over 140,000 international passport booklets remain unclaimed at its issuing offices across the country.

It expressed worry over the trend, where Nigerians blame the service for not meeting their needs for the essential travel document.

NIS Comptroller General Isah Jere, who announced this yesterday in Lagos, cited communication challenges and the use of third party agents to apply for international passports as the major factors for the increasing number of unclaimed passports.

Jere spoke through an Assistant Comptroller General (ACG) in the Migration Directorate of the service, Abdullahi Usman, head of a committee on unclaimed passports nationwide.

The NIS boss said efforts to reach the applicants for the 140,000 unclaimed passports had become difficult due to either wrong or incomplete information supplied by third party players or contact details.

Speaking during a fact-finding visit to the Alausa Passport Office and the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, both in Ikeja, Usman 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.

The ACG, who spoke after inspecting activities at the Alausa office of the NIS, urged passport applicants to shun the use of third parties.

Usman said: '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...