By Chidi Matthew Nwachukwu

On the 11th of September, 2023, I applied for a new international passport through the Nigerian Immigrations Service’s (NIS) official website, and I was scheduled for biometric enrolment and capturing on the 18th of September, 2023. On the date for the capturing, I reported at the NIS headquarters at about 8:15am, 45 minutes to the scheduled time. I was accosted at the gate by men of the Immigration Service who asked to know my purpose for visit. I was initially adamant about disclosing any information to them, but I later decided to oblige them after I had been persuaded and convinced that I might need their help to conclude my application process.

Upon discovering that I was a fresh applicant, one of the men took me to a corner and asked me if I wanted the passport produced immediately or later. I told him that I wanted the passport produced later as I was not in immediate need of it.

The Immigration man whose rank is ‘Inspector’ and whose nominal initials are “Oz,” urged me to opt for the immediate production of my passport as that would save me time and stress, but I declined because it was clear to me that the Inspector was only persuading me for selfish reasons, not necessarily because he cared. It is normal for Immigration staff to persuade passport applicants to opt for quick production of their passports so that they can charge them for “express production.” Many returnees from abroad who want their passports produced very quickly, usually pay huge sums of money for this “express production.”

At this point, the Inspector became frustrated and asked me how much I was willing to pay to have my application filed and sent to the production department of the NIS, and I told him that I had no money to offer him as I had already been warned by the Immigration helpline attendant whom I had earlier called to obtain information on the passport application procedures, not to pay money to any Immigration staff for the filing process.

The Inspector, seeing that I was not willing to part with any money, decided to reduce his service charge to N5,000 from N20,000 so that he wouldn’t lose out completely on the deal. I later agreed to pay the N5,000 because the Inspector told me that there were some little charges involved in the process of coupling and submitting application files such as the file purchase and file submission costs.

So, the Inspector led me into the NIS premises for the opening and coupling of the file, and while we walked to a nearby business centre, he disclosed to me that the applicants who apply for passport through the NIS online portal are usually their biggest headache. When I enquired to know why he had made such a remark, he angrily said: “Na people like una wey dey apply for passport online dey spoil our show. Na una dey spoil market for us. Una no want make we see food chop.”

I was somewhat shocked at those remarks because I didn’t expect that a staff of the Immigration Service who was ordinarily supposed to encourage people to take advantage of the opportunity provided by government to apply for passports, would turn around and disparage those who are doing the right thing. His grouse was simply that when people go online to apply for passport, they wittingly avoid paying passport racketeers the huge sums of money that they normally charge applicants. For instance, it is normal for an Immigration staff to charge between N50,000 to even a million naira for the production of a passport, depending on the type of passport and how soon the applicant wants it. The applicants who return from abroad to renew their passports are usually in so much hurry that they don’t mind paying any amount charged them. But on the Immigration passport application portal, the official cost of obtaining a passport is only N25,000 (for 32 pages, 5 years) and N70,000 (for 64 pages, 10 years), but these charges exclude the service charges and value-added taxes (VAT) which are usually not more than N1,000.

So, I paid the Inspector the N5,000 in cash, and he quickly walked into a nearby business centre and asked for a file opening form and a new file. The form was filled by the Inspector himself and all the required documents were selected from the hordes of documents I had brought for the application process. He then wrote some inscriptions on the file and stapled the documents to it, and asked me to follow him to the capturing centre. He then asked me to sit down among the other applicants who were waiting for their names to be called for capturing.

After about 10 minutes, my name was called and I went to collect my file which had been added to the capturing list. I was quickly shown the way to the capturing centre and I was soon seated in the queue.

The capturing queue was very organized as some strict Immigration officers manned it and ensured that no one went into the capturing room out of turn.

After about 1 hour, it was my turn to be captured and the process was completed in about 15 minutes. I was handed a tiny piece of paper on which was written my enrolment number and I was strictly warned not to misplace the paper. In fact, I was advised to quickly take a snapshot of the enrolment number and save it somewhere special so that even if I mistakenly misplaced the tiny paper, I would still have access to my enrolment number. It is important to note that if a passport applicant loses their enrolment number, they will have some difficulty sorting out and obtaining their passport because the enrolment number is the only means through which a newly-produced passport can be traced to its owner.

When leaving the capturing room, I was asked to return after 6 weeks to collect my passport. I hurriedly went back to the Immigration officer who had assisted me and gave him a copy of my enrolment number. We both agreed that he would keep a close tab on my passport’s production and inform me when the passport is out.

On my own, I was also tracking my passport production process through the NIS tracking portal. The NIS official website has a special tracking system through which applicants can track the progress of their passport production. I tracked the entire process from when I paid for the passport to when it was finally issued.

Now, while waiting for my passport to be produced, I maintained close communication with the Inspector. I expected the Inspector to inform me when the passport was ready so that I would go to the collection centre to pick it up, but that did not happen as the Inspector never called me. I was the one doing all the calling. Most times when I called, he would not pick up, and even when he picked up, he would talk incoherently or feign busy.

It was at this point that I decided to visit the collection centre myself. When I submitted my enrolment number for a quick check, I was told that the passport was not yet ready, and I was asked to return in a week or two’s time. I called the Inspector to give him the feedback, and he told me to relax and not get walked up over the delay.

After two weeks, I called the Inspector again to check if the passport was ready, and he told me point-blank that the passport wasn’t ready, that it was undergoing an “encoding process.” I asked why the passport (which I was told by the Collection Centre staff would definitely be ready in two weeks) was not yet ready, and he told me to either wait for another two weeks or give him some money to recouple another file and use it to force out my passport. He claimed that he would be able to do some backyard runs and produce the passport in 2 days if I paid him N10,000.

Unsatisfied with the feedback I had received, I visited the Immigration Office on Friday, the 3rd of November, 2023, and upon my arrival, I met the Inspector and he still blatantly told me that my passport was not yet ready. He still suggested that I pay him N10,000 to couple another file and push for the immediate production of my passport. Seeing no sense in his suggestion, I decided to go to the collection centre to find out things for myself. While I was walking away, the Inspector said to me, “If you like go report for Servicom or go anywhere wey you like, you no go still get your passport.” He was clearly jeering at me with those words.

When I entered the collection centre, I quickly scribbled down my enrolment number on a piece of paper and handed it over to the checking officer. I waited for 3 minutes and the checking officer returned with my passport and asked me to confirm its ownership. I confirmed that the passport was mine, and the checking officer quickly made an entry of my passport and handed it over to me.

Awed by what had just happened, I asked the checking officer why the Inspector had lied to me about my passport status, and the gentle officer whose first name is Jumbo, told me that lying about passport status or deceiving applicants was a common practice among many Immigration staff. Instead of telling an applicant that their passport was ready, they would lie just to extort money from the applicant. They would tell the applicant that their passport was undergoing an “encoding process” and ask them to pay for express production, and once the applicant makes the payment, they go to the collection centre and get the passport.

Jumbo further disclosed to me that there had been cases where an applicant was tossed about by an Immigration officer because the applicant’s passport had been misplaced and the Immigration officer could not account for it. In such a case, the applicant would be asked to check from one office to another to find out what was up with their passport. Jumbo decried such practice amongst his colleagues and warned applicants to be wary of such dubious Immigration staff.

And while I was still hanging around the Immigration premises, I noticed a young man of about 25 years trying to get physical with an Immigration officer. When I drew closer to snoop out the possible cause of the outburst, I figured out that the Immigration officer had been lying to the young man about his passport’s status. When I later engaged the young man in a tete-a-tete, I discovered that he had allegedly paid N150,000 to the officer to “expressly” produce a 10-year passport for him, and that for over 3 months, the officer had continued to tell him “cock-and-bull” stories about the passport. The young man was insisting on getting his passport that day or causing a big trouble for the Immigration officer.

These and many more are the kinds of stories that people have shared about their encounter with Immigration officers while applying for international passports. The manner of stories shared point to one thing: passport racketeering. There are many kinds of racketeering viz: land racketeering, property racketeering, crude oil racketeering, and just name it, and they are all fraudulent practices that contravene the law. Passport racketeering simply becomes an addition to the list of shady deals that happen daily in Nigeria; and this is even more worrisome considering the fact that the current Comptroller General of the Nigerian Immigration Service, Mrs. Wura-Ola Caroline Adepoju, has openly declared a full-blown war against passport racketeering.

But Zara Olumide, a contract staff consulting for the Nigerian Immigration Service, thinks that passport racketeering is common amongst the staff of the Immigration because their actual salaries are nothing to write home about. She therefore called on the Immigration Service to upwardly review their staff welfare package as that, according to her, would help to curb the spate of passport racketeering amongst the staff of the NIS.



Chidi Matthew Nwachukwu is an Abuja-based journalist and a private media consultant. He is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Cmatencore Media Consults Ltd., and he can be reached through email at cmatencore86@gmail.com. The above story is his personal experience when he went to the NIS Headquarters in Abuja to apply for his international passport.

How do I apply for a job in Immigration??

FuckingMachine:
How do I apply for a job in Immigration??

I am not an Immigration staff. My story does not relate to job application at the Immigration. If you want to work in the Immigrations Service, check their official website.

It's express service, it's everywhere.

creativehubb:
It's express service, it's everywhere.

It doesn't matter how you perceive this story, what is there to know is that passport racketeering has become a norm at the Nigerian Immigrattion Service and it should be condemned. You obviously trivialize the fact of passport racketeering being an obvious crime. Just pray to your god that you don't fall victim of passport racketeering.

ChidiCmatencore:

It doesn't matter how you perceive this story, what is there to know is that passport racketeering has become a norm at the Nigerian Immigrattion Service and it should be condemned. You obviously trivialize the fact of passport racketeering being an obvious crime. Just pray to your god that you don't fall victim of passport racketeering.

What's victim to fall here, stop talking nonsense...you either subscribe to it or not. People have been saying passport comes out quickly these days... nobody force you to do racketeering.

creativehubb:

What's victim to fall here, stop talking nonsense...you either subscribe to it or not. People have been saying passport comes out quickly these days... nobody force you to do racketeering.

You can actually make your point without being insolent. It doesn't cost anything to be civil and reasonable. If you do not subscribe to my point of thought, then just walk away. I am not here to convince you to accept my opinions.

ChidiCmatencore:

You can actually make your point without being insolent. It doesn't cost anything to be civil and reasonable. If you do not subscribe to my point of thought, then just walk away. I am not here to convince you to accept my opinions.

You have no point