Nigeria Immigration Services, NIS, says it has seven thousand five hundred uncollected passport booklets in Oyo State.
The acting Deputy Comptroller, General Research and Statistics in Abuja, Mrs Dora Amahian stated this during a working visit to NIS Oyo State Command.
Mrs Amahian said the visitation became imperative to appeal to passport applicants, who had refused to collect their booklets for a reason best known to them, to come for collection.
The Immigration boss said some of the uncollected passport booklets had been with the agency for more than a year and it was affecting it to produce new ones.
She said findings revealed that some applicants were fond of registering with fake or incorrect phone numbers which had made it difficult for the Immigration Service to reach out to the applicants.
Mrs Amahian stressed further that the issue of National Identification Number, NIN was also a factor that affects the production of passport booklets as many people filled in the wrong Identification numbers on their application forms.
The Immigration boss stressed further that, though there was a time when the agency was having numerous challenges at producing passport booklets, which had frustrated the public on many occasions.
She said with the e-Passport reform of the agency, it only takes three weeks for re-issuance after capturing and fresh cases would take six weeks after submission of necessary requirements.
Mrs Amahian stated further that the agency also has priority for special cases for those with health issues who needed to travel abroad for further treatment with genuine pieces of evidence.
“We don’t collect money from anyone to fast track the issuance of passport booklets and officials caught in such act would be dealt with”
“I want to appeal to those who applied for passport booklets in the last nine to ten months to kindly come for collection or log on to the Immigration website to check if their names were among the 7,500 uncollected produced passports.
The Nigeria Immigration Service boss, Mrs Amahian added that people should always endeavour to fill out the application forms in the right order in order to get their passports within the frame time. (RN)
