By Austine Uche Ejeke
On Tuesday February 27, 2018, I went to Ikoyi Passport Office of Nigeria Immigration Service to renew my expired international passport. After paying N30,000 and spending the whole day in the quest to get the passport, I left their office around 4.30pm on that day.
I was given the assurance that I will pick the passport in three days’ time. Four weeks after I have not collected the passport!
The story they are telling us is that there is scarcity of passport booklets.
The big question is why subject Nigerians to such bitter experience of trying to get the passport if the immigration department knows that they don’t have passport booklets to issue out.
Every day Nigerians troop out in their thousands to queue for the passports under scorching sun, rain and inclement weather. They pay far above the official cost of the passport, yet they cannot get the passport on record time.
Why collect money that runs into millions of naira daily in pretext of issuing passports to Nigerians and will not keep to your own side of the bargain? The immigration department knows that there is shortage or scarcity of passport booklets why will they still collect money from people? By the way, what will it take to mass produce these passport booklets that will go round on demand? What rocket science does Nigeria require to ensure that application and issuance of passport does not exceed 48 hours?
That is the problem in this country! Every department or agency creates artificial scarcity for the product and services they render just to create room for them to rip hapless Nigerians off!
The same thing applies to procurement of driver’s licence. You pay for licence and six months or even one year after you have not collected it. I applied for renewal of my driver’s licence since October 16, 2017, and could only pick it up in March 2018. This is a licence that expires in five years’ time, six whole months have been chopped off it and nobody is compensating or making up for the loss.
Many people complain of paying and not getting their international passports three or six months after. Most Nigerians have lost travelling and business opportunities as a result of not meeting up with having their passports renewed or freshly procured.
Same scenario is painted for Nigerians living abroad who on many occasions cannot get the Nigerian passport when they need it. We hear stories of frustrations at Nigerian embassies abroad of how Nigerians cannot travel because their travelling documents which is the passport is unavailable! What a national embarrassment!
When will all these things end and when will we learn how to do things right in this country? This thing is getting out of hand and except something drastic is done urgently it will soon turn into the norm and acceptable standard way of doing things in this country!
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