There are strong indications that most persons who have applied for the issuance of Nigerian passports which would enable them travel to other countries have been having a rough time.
This is authoritative.
Sources within the Immigration Department hinted the Port Harcourt Telegraph at the weekend that the development is due largely to a shortage in the supply of blank passport booklets.
“We are under pressure to issue passports to those who have already applied. The situation is becoming chaotic”, a staff in the Passport Office disclosed.
We have learnt that many whose biometrics have been captured for months now by Immigration officials in Port Harcourt are worse hit.
As a result, intending travellers who include businessmen and students, are being frustrated.
A student reportedly fainted last week at the Passport Office in Port Harcourt when the authorities could not issue the necessary travelling document.
The implication is that the student’s dream to study abroad may have been dashed.
Until recently, Nigeria’s passport was procured from an Asian Country, precisely in Malaysia, according to what we have been told.
It is apparent that the deal between the Nigerian Government and its previous supplier was eventually cancelled, following sharp disagreements over cost.
A new entity, according to what we have pieced together, has won the bid to produce new Nigerian passports.
Insiders say the new passports which are gradually trickling in have better security features which may make the travelling document difficult to fake.
Incidentally, those who are obtaining the new passports are those whose biometrics have just been captured.
Those who went through the exercise months ago are being asked to wait until the Immigration Department is in a position to clear the backlog.
Requests by anxious Nigerians in Port Harcourt to go through another biometric capture in order to emerge as beneficiaries of the new passports have been rejected by Immigration officials.
An official told this publication, “they cannot be captured twice. Their names are already in the system.”
Last week, workers at the Passport office in the Rivers capital expected fresh deliveries of the booklets, but they never arrived. Nigeria’s passport is ranked at 95 in the world, with the Japanese passport apparently ranked number one.
