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.
