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Ilorin, Nigeria — In September 2021, when Akpos Malafakumo walked into the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) office in Yenagoa, Bayelsa, to apply for a new passport, she had no idea it would take 10 months to get it.
After filling the forms, an officer there told her to pay 70 000 naira (US$175) for an expedited passport or wait six weeks – like others. “Six weeks sounded like a reasonable time to me so I paid 45 000 naira [US$113] because I was not in a hurry to get the passport,” said the 25-year-old.
It was not until mid-November that Malafakumo was called in for biometric capturing. Six weeks later, when she had still not been notified that the passport was ready, she went to the office to complain in December 2021.
“I was getting worried already … because I was applying for a graduate school outside the country and most of the applications needed my passport number,” she said.
In 2017, the NIS banned cash payments ostensibly to make the process of getting or renewing passports nationwide as efficient as possible and phase out middlemen.
Two years later, it introduced e-passports to curb forgery.
But citizens say these measures have instead worsened the situation at immigration offices within Nigeria and abroad and left a long line of people waiting for passports to be issued. – AL Jazeera
Online Reporter