By I wanted to apply for my international passport sometime in May this year, so I reached out to a friend who gave me a number of a female immigration officer (name withheld), who works at the National Immigration Service (NIS) office in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.
I messaged the lady on WhatsApp, first, by introducing myself, and stating the reason I was in her inbox. She told me that five-year duration (32-pages) passport costs N85,000 and the 10-year (64 pages) costs N150,000. She asked if I had a birth certificate and I declined, she said that would cost me N5,000, making it a total of N90,000 and N155,000 respectively.
Tunji Ojo
I tried haggling the price with her, but she said it was not negotiable, adding that was the fixed price for the application. I wanted to go for the 64 pages, so I told her that I would be returning the following day to get it done.
When I dropped the call because she later called me on WhatsApp to say that I would be needing a birth certificate from the Nigerian Population Commission (NPC), my instinct prompted me to call my mentor to tell him about the prices. It was during our discussion that he urged me to process it myself online in the official NIS portal. Minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo has brought a tremendous improvement to the system since his assumption of office as the Minister of Interior. Why are Nigerians still patronising agberos (middlemen) to have their passports processed at cut-throat prices?
Convinced, I googled the NIS application portal as advised, and there, I stumbled on the official prices for the five years (32 pages) registration fee reading N50,000, and that of 10 years (64) pages reading 100,000. I couldn’t believe my eyes. So, why are our immigration officers still bent in fleecing Nigerians of their hard-earned money at a time the Nigerian economy isn’t smiling at anybody? Or are Nigerians not yet convinced that they could get their passports processed directly even via their android devices?
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And so, I tried doing the application myself. When I got to the payment part, I realised that my Automated Teller Machine (ATM) card had expired, so I closed the site. Prior to the payment point, the application process did not take up to 30 minutes. It was that easy and fast.
Fast forward to 28 August, when I heard that NIS would be increasing the passport fees from N50,000 (32-pages) and N100,000 (64-pages) to N100,000 and N200,000 in September, I quickly returned to the site and completed my application, seamlessly, because at the time, I had gotten a new ATM card. I registered and booked my appointment date for capturing which was a week from that day.
On the day of capturing, I went to their office in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, and I was directed to one of the offices. When I got there, the lady officer who attended to me asked why my passport application form, appointment slip and payment receipt were not stapled together, I apologised, but added that I couldn’t staple them because I was in a haste. Then came a bombshell! She told me to pay N500 for her to staple them for me! I hesitated and wanted to ask her why I needed to pay for mere stapling, but the look on her face showed that she might use that opportunity to delay me, so I just smiled and gave her the money. Yes, I gave her the N500 she requested!
However, it will be interesting to note that she didn’t staple the documents. She just wrote something down on one of the documents, gave me a piece of paper, and directed me to another office to get them stapled. It was when I got to the next office that I realised that was the capturing office and nothing would have happened if I didn’t give her the money. This is because when I got there, I was asked why my documents were not stapled and I told them that the lady in the other office had asked me to take them there to be stapled. The officer that attended to me was nice as he just smiled while struggling to pronounce my surname. After stapling them, he told me to go wait in the waiting area, that the network was down, but they would attend to me, shortly. This is a recurring decimal in our passport-issuing offices. An Abiku internet network at our NIS offices, whether humanly-induced or technically-induced, is unbefitting for the giant of Africa! Before leaving the office, the officer asked me to look at the duration it would take for my passport to be ready, and it read six to seven weeks! This duration contradicts the three weeks duration handed down by Minister Tunji-Ojo. It’s obvious that some underhand dealings are usually playing out in these offices where almost every officer is a middleman, frantically seeking clients to fleece.
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I sat and waited; and after about two hours, I was called in for capturing. While my details were being cross-checked, the officer noticed that my application portal was reading “incomplete registration,” because one of the documents I uploaded was incorrect. I was told that what I needed was a birth certificate and not a court Declaration of Age; that the last set of people permitted to upload the latter were those born in 1992, and that anything later than that should be nothing short of a birth certificate. Of course, the officer swiftly volunteered to help me obtain it with the payment of N4,000. Yes! They help to gain! However, I was told that even if the document was uploaded that day, there was no way I could be captured the same day, so I returned home.
The following day, the “nice officer,” sent me the birth certificate and also uploaded it. He said I would be captured when my application was approved. I waited two extra days and I noticed, again, that the name in one of my documents did not match what was in my NIN, so, I went back to their office and another officer told me to rectify it by processing the document, again this time, with the exact names in my NIN. Done with this, I sent it to the “nice officer,” and after a day, he told me to come for my capturing which I did.
The actual capturing process took less than five minutes. Afterwards, I asked him if I could send someone to pick it up for me since I wouldn’t be around. He told me that it was possible; that what the person needed to bring was his/her means of identification, the number that was given to me, and a letter of permission from me. Nice one!
Fast forward to less than four weeks later, I received a text notifying me that my passport was ready for pick up. Since I had left Uyo, I sent a friend to help me do that. After verifying his identity, they called to confirm if I had sent anyone to pick up my passport and who the person was. I answered their questions and they gave the passport to my friend. Awesome!!!
It’s, really, commendable how they called me to verify the identity of the person I sent to pick up my passport. That’s comely and satisfactory as it could take me over N50,000 for transport to and from my current destination. So, I processed my international passport myself without succumbing to extra charges of N50,000 and more for a N50,000 stuff! But it took some guts; some patience, some courage!
Tunji-Ojo
My Thoughts:
While I acknowledge that the country is hard and everyone is trying to make ends meet in whatever way they can, in my opinion, adding an extra N50,000 fee by immigration officers, who have constituted themselves as contracting agberos (middlemen), to the stipulated official Federal Government fee is not only insensitive, but cruel and unfair! But isn’t this the exact malfaecence Minister Tunji-Ojo vowed and trying to eliminate from the system? Why is the passport issuance taking more than the stipulated three weeks? Who’s overseeing that these policies are strictly adhered to by immigration officers in charge in the various passport offices across the nation?
Why does the average Nigerian always look for every opportunity to exploit their fellow Nigerians? Immigration officers are salary earners. Federal workers for crying out loud! Yet, every one of them in these passport offices across the country usually loaf around, in well-ironed khaki uniforms, asking anyone seeking entrance through the gate if they are there to obtain their passport and who’s assisting them to process it! Like street tomato or orange hawkers, you’ll often hear them ask: “Hi. Hello. How are you? Are you here for your passport, capturing or registration? Have you called someone already?” If your answer is ” no” to these questions, you’ll hear the next line: “I’ve someone that can process it for you.” So, he or she would call upon one of the officers in the offices, if you oblige them, to take it up from where he gets his or her own cut! When it goes through a chain like this, the price might jack up even above the N50,000 extra charges!
With the application fee now N100,000 and N200,000 for 32 and 64 pages respectively, our agbero officers now charge N150,000 for 32 pages and 250,000 for 64 pages with an additional fee of N25,000 if you insist on getting your passport in one or two weeks. They call it “express” or “sharp sharp”! “For 32 pages, it’s now N150,000; for 64 pages, it’s N250,000. If you want “express,” you’ll pay additional N25,000,” was the reaction of a female immigration whom I contacted again this week to find out the latest happenings at the Uyo passport office.
Someone said the reason the immigration officers usually fix six to seven weeks as duration for the passport issuance (this is what they usually tell their clients) was to make those in haste opt for “express” in order to rake in more money into their pockets.
Truth be told, besides the epileptic Internet network often complained about during capturing, the process, feedback and verification process are top-notch.
Now to my fellow Nigerians, I know we like being in a hurry; we like ready-made, but every process takes some time and patience. Don’t go for the application when you’re already in a hurry. You’ll be fleeced. Dedicate two months for the application and do it yourself. You can easily and seamlessly apply for your passport online from the comfort of your home with your internet-enabled android phone, laptops, tablets or iPhone. Let’s stop being gullible. Let’s follow the process prescribed by the Federal Government and stop aiding corruption among immigration officials.
Minister Tunji-Ojo recently mooted that the next stage of the ongoing reform is to enable self-capturing for clients in the very comfort of their homes – a contactless process. Two months to go this year, how far sir? We do this, seamlessly, with these digital banks, why’s this difficult for passport issuance? Let it be that the only point of contact between clients and immigration officers is, maybe, at the point of collection, then the corrupt ones among them would be out of business.
Last line:
If Nigeria would be a better place for us and our children to live and thrive, all of us must agree together to engender these visions. Minister Tunji-Ojo cannot be in every passport office to monitor their activities. If he fails, don’t blame him; blame immigration personnel who are hell-bent in maintaining the status quo of corruption, ineptitude and mediocrity!
To be continued…..
Ogheneyoma Akporierhie writes from Warri, Delta State.
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