“#GettingNigerianPassport is like getting honey from bees. Sounds good and adventurous until you try.” Favour Olufunmilayo.
Ogunbowale Olugbenga, a digital skills expert, had to pray, fast, wait a month, and run a thread on twitter before he could get his passport, 24 hours from missing his Visa appointment.
If he decided to pay N40,000 to an immigration official, he could have got the passport in a day. But as a law-abiding citizen, he didn’t. After his personal diary was published by TheCable, he got his passport the same day.
Olugbenga’s case is one in thousands as Nigerians go through different hurdles in obtaining the passport which ordinarily is not meant to take more than 72 hours.
While most Nigerians shared their bitter experiences from different offices of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), stating how they had to bribe officials, there
were few cases where some said they followed due process and got their passport in record time.
Nigerians shared their experiences with TheCable below.
SPEAK OUT! What’s your experience getting #Nigerian Passport? Join the conversation #GettingNigerianPassport Cc @DrJoeAbah @toluogunlesi pic.twitter.com/xt4jaFG0Ml
— TheCable (@thecableng) March 28, 2019
It is a racket in the Minna immigration office, If you know the right Racket you will pay 25k for it.
— Baba Musa (@elbabsy) March 28, 2019
Nigeria immigration services is one ofbtge most corrupted agency in the country, they have official price of about #11k in their site, but you will pay nothing less than #30,000 minimum for you to get passport.
— Mosesd (@NwokemMoses) March 28, 2019
ENDThere is so much fraud in the Passport Process.
At the Passport Office, you are asked to pay cash or do transfers into Accounts I don’t know.
The Amounts are not the Prescribed fees.— Julius Akpere (@JuliusAkpere) March 28, 2019
My experience was different here in Ekiti state. Obtaining the Nigerian Passport at their Ado-Ekiti office was smooth-sailing for me on behalf of my daughter. The procedures were listed openly on a board at the Reception, and all I did was go back and return with all the requirements, including making payment of the required fees.
After submission of those requirements, I was asked to produce my daughter in person for capturing on their system. Cost of bringing my daughter in person to Ado-Ekiti from UI(where she was doing her Masters degree then) was the only additional expenses I incurred. She waited to collect her Passport the day after she was captured.
Suffice it to add here that no official of NIS(Ado-Ekiti) demanded for any under-the-table payment from me before or after collecting the said Passport.