NIS Moves To Clear Over 100,000 Unclaimed Passports

The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has further stepped up strategic actions on the efficiency of passport administration with the deployment of Assistant Comptroller Generals (ACGs) to some zonal offices with higher number of unclaimed passports with a view to ramping up the collection of over 100,000 produced but unclaimed passports nationwide.

Comptroller General of Immigration, Isah Jere Idris, while announcing the deployment of the top senior officers, said Lagos topped the list of uncollected passports with about 40,000 produced passports yet to be collected by the applicants.

He said the other zones with higher number of uncollected passports where the ACGs were deployed, were the Benin and Port Harcourt Zonal Offices of the Immigration to ramp up the collection of the produced passports.

CGI Idris added that Zonal Comptrollers and State Comptrollers had also been directed to liaise with Passport Controllers in their respective areas of responsibility to ensure speedy collection of the produced passports by the applicants.

He also said the mandate of the senior officers was to ensure that everything possible was done to locate the applicants whose passports were among the 100,000 produced passports that have not been collected by the prospective holders.

The immigration boss, while describing as worrisome the failure of applicants to come forward to collect their passports months after they were, called on those that applied for the Nigerian travel passports since January last year, and those that applied within the six weeks’ passport processing timeline to visit the Passport Offices where they did their biometric capture for collection of their produced passports.

While assuring that Immigration personnel were always working round the clock to ensure speedy processing of application and production of passports to meet the needs of the travelling public, the CGI stated that passport production was a continuous exercise as it was not limited to any particular time or season of the year.

To further assist the applicants, he enjoined passport applicants to always check their application status by using any of the numerous channels which the NIS has provided including the Passport Application Tracking (PATs) solution (www.trackimmigration.gov.ng), notice boards at the Passport Offices and the NIS website for regular updates.

On what could have been responsible for the high number of unclaimed produced passports, CGI Idris blamed the applicants many of whom he said supplied incorrect contact details such as inactive telephone numbers, contact addresses and e-mail addresses, thereby making it difficult for NIS personnel at the Passport Offices to reach them for the collection of their passports.

He also disclosed that it had come to the notice of the NIS that some applicants were still patronising third parties to fill and submit applications on their behalf, noting that in many cases incorrect information about the applicants was supplied. In some cases the third parties used their own contact details while majority of the applicants neither verified nor double-checked such information supplied.

He appealed to passport applicants to stop the practising of going through third parties, warning that they could be at security risks including breach of their personal data and other fraudulent activities.

It would be recalled that the Federal Ministry of Interior and NIS recently rolled out some initiatives aimed at making obtaining and renewing the Nigerian international passport quicker and less cumbersome including a six-week timeframe to apply and get the new enhanced e-Passport for fresh applicants and three weeks for reissue.

Also, Diaspora Fast Track Programme, among many other initiatives were launched recently that made it possible for holders of expired Nigerian passports in the Diaspora to board at their countries of residence and be admitted into Nigeria with their expired passports, without any inhibition.