“Worst hit by these unacceptable hardships are Nigerians in the United States of America, Canada, Italy, the UK and Austria. This is not to say that other countries of the world where huge number of Nigerians reside do not experience this malaise.”

By Andy Asemota

The Senate yesterday expressed shock that Nigerian passport renewal applicants in the United States of America spend months in the process and the only ones who get speedy attention pay to the middlemen or directly to the embassy officials.

The Upper Chamber was informed that visa issuance, passport renewal and several other services rendered by the Nigerian embassies in many countries had been turned into rackets by Nigerian officials and their foreign partners who connive to make life unbearable for their kinsmen that they were employed to serve.

“Payment for the renewable is done by using credit/debit cards of the holders or owners only for himself or herself. Payment for the children and any other family member is done using money order and this money order has to be sent by post. This has recorded missing money order and other hardships to parents and guardians,” Senator Matthew Urhoghide (Edo South, PDP) said in his lead debate on his motion for urgent need to remove the difficulty faced by Nigerians outside the shores of this country in renewing their passports.

Urhoghide lamented that the fact that Nigeria boasts of only four centres in the US where her citizens could renew their passports made some Nigerians to be on roads for days un-end to the renewal centres from their places of residence thus affecting their jobs, finances and safety of life.

He said: “In some or all of the renewal centres, there’s exists middlemen who are either working with or for officials of the Nigerian embassies. This is especially true of renewal centres in the US and Italy as videos of this practice are awash on social media. In all the cases, these middlemen are not Nigerians and demand for money from Nigerians to book for them, a capture (interview) date with officials of the embassy.”

Senate moves to end racketeering of Nigerian passports abroad

Consequently, the Senate yesterday directed its appropriate committees to engage the Minister of Interior, his Foreign Affairs counterpart and the Comptroller General of Immigration with the ambassadors/consular officers of the countries specifically indicted to remove the existence of middlemen; increase the number of centres where passports could be renewed abroad including by post and hold regular assessment of the activities of Nigeria’s foreign missions.

The Senate was emphatic that unless urgent steps were taken decisively, all that the nation had achieved would be undermined and Nigerians could not continue to treat fellow citizens the way even foreigners should not be treated.