The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) on Monday claimed that not less than 3000 international passports are awaiting collection by applicants in Command in Kwara State.
The outgoing Comptroller of Passports in Kwara state Command, Baba Aliyu, disclosed this in Ilorin at his retirement party.
Aliyu noted that the applicants could not be contacted by phone numbers provided on their applications.
In his words “We usually send SMS through the contact address and phone numbers provided by the applicants, but some messages fail because the numbers are fake.
“Some applicants may have died, while others may refuse to collect it because they could not meet up with what they wanted to use it for. Whatever the reasons may be, passports should not be abandoned as they serve a lot of functions besides being travelling documents.”
Aliyu however urged the Federal Government to initiate sanctions on applicants who failed to collect their passports after processing. Noted the abandoned passports were not only for people of Kwara but for applicants from different parts of Nigeria.
Aliyu further encourages Nigerians seeking to acquire an international passport to visit the website of the service at immigration.gov.ng to apply. Said it takes just two weeks to acquire a passport as well as renew an expired one.
