By Mudiaga Affe
Nigerians residing in Italy on Sunday applauded the effort of officials of the Nigeria Embassy in fast-tracking the process of obtaining an international passport which hitherto was a difficult task.

They also called on Nigerians to disregard a viral video by one Olusola Adegboye, Chairman of the Human Right Defenders & Access to Justice Advocacy Centre, which criticized officials of the embassy over the process of visa issuance and passport renewal.

In a statement made available to ThisNigeria by the Welfare Officer of the National Union of Nigerians in Italy, NUNAI, Pastor Mike Oputteh, the diaspora citizens said the video was unsubstantiated against Nigerians and the embassy.

He said the author of the video who does not reside in Italy is obviously on a smear-sponsored campaign mission to discredit the good work of the consular office in Italy.

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He said, “We want to state categorically that Nigerians in Italy have never had it so good especially with the renewed vigor and effort of the Embassy officials in making sure that Visa and passport process is done at record time.

“So, it is shocking to see some disgruntle element masquerading in name of human rights defenders making false allegations in the social media. It is totally false and baseless. We are calling on all our law-abiding citizens to ignore such statements.

“It is pertinent to note that the said official he mentioned in the said video was recently recognized with an international award in Abuja for bringing sanity and efficiency to visa process in Italy.”