140,000 passports not collected in Nigeria

The Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) on Tuesday disclosed about 140,000 international passports are still uncollected nationwide.

Tony Akuneme, the service spokesman, Deputy Comptroller of the Immigration Service, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) when he paid an official visit to the Alausa Passport office, Ikeja, Lagos state.

Akuneme hinted that about 40,000 of the total 140,000 are in the Alausa Passport office.

According to the service spokesperson, the majority of the uncollected passports had wrong phone contacts and untraceable addresses.

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Akuneme implored applicants to process their international passports by themselves, using correct details and without involving racketeers.

He noted that it was a wrong perception, to say that getting a fresh or renewing an international passport was very difficult.

“Inspite 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 workout well.

”Some applicants are gullible, they fell into the hands of touts who duped them of their hard earned money,” Akuneme said.

Ifeoma Okeke-Korieocha

Ifeoma Okeke-Korieocha is the Aviation Correspondent at BusinessDay Media Limited, publishers of BusinessDay Newspapers. She is also the Deputy Editor, BusinessDay Weekender Magazine, the Saturday Weekend edition of BusinessDay. She holds a BSC in Mass Communication from the prestigious University of Nigeria, Nsukka and a Masters degree in Marketing at the University of Lagos. As the lead writer on the aviation desk, Ifeoma is responsible and in charge of the three weekly aviation and travel pages in BusinessDay and BDSunday. She also overseas and edits all pages of BusinessDay Saturday Weekender. She has written various investigative, features and news stories in aviation and business related issues and has been severally nominated for award in the category of Aviation Writer of the Year by the Nigeria Media Nite-Out awards; one of the Nigeria’s most prestigious media awards ceremonies. Ifeoma is a one-time winner of the prestigious Nigeria Media Merit Award under the 'Aviation Writer of the Year' Category. She is the 2025 Eloy Award winner under the Print Media Journalist category. She has undergone several journalism trainings by various prestigious organisations. Ifeoma is also a fellow of the Female Reporters Leadership Fellowship of the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism.