The Nigerian Immigration Service, on Wednesday, revealed that about 7,500 international passports are still awaiting collection in their Oyo State office.
The Assistant Comptroller-General of Immigration, Dora Amahian, who is in charge of planning and statistics at the NIS headquarters, made this known in Ibadan.
Amahian said some of the passports have been produced since 2020 but were waiting for the owners to claim them
The assistant comptroller-general added that the NIS had been sending text messages to the applicants as only a few of them responded to the calls put across to them.
Amahian lamented that some applicants submitted the wrong phone numbers making the SMS sent to them remain undelivered.
We have about 7,500 uncollected passports in Oyo State and we do not want them to expire in our hands because if they do, applicants will have to pay money for fresh applications,” she said.
“In times past, there had been unpalatable comments about how applicants were made to wait endlessly for passport issuance.
We want to tell you that NIS has been issuing passports but people don’t come to pick them up.’’
She assured Nigerians that passports would be issued to fresh applicants within six weeks, while renewals would be done in three weeks.
