The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) denied on Tuesday that its personnel were involved in international passport racketeering.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!NIS personnel at the Alausa Passport Office in Ikeja, Lagos, while reacting to an investigation by an online news site, insisted that there were accredited Cyber Café operators allowed around the premises to assist applicants who come to the agency without doing their registration and payments.
The officers, who expressed displeasure at the report, told The Nation that NIS authorities accredited some business centre operators following incessant request by applicants that personnel should do their registration and payments for them.
To ensure that passport officials do not get involved in applicant’s registration and by extension neglect their duties, a source said the decision was reached to allow business centre operators near the office, where such applicants could be referred to.
He said: “E-Passport is a cashless and participatory idea. Applicants play their parts and NIS officers do theirs. People are expected to log on to the website, do their payments; bring all documents to the passport office, where we take over and process within a time limit.
“But we discovered people used to complain about payments. They could not do the E-transacts. That was why NIS officers started assisting in doing payments. That led to the job suffering and we decided to bring Cyber Cafés closer so that they can assist the applicants who couldn’t do it on their own and our personnel can face their jobs.
“Accredited cafés were allowed around passport offices. Applicants patronize them and they do their things without interference from the NIS. We do not take part in it. But along the line, we discovered that some of these applicants complained that they were being charged far beyond the official rates.
“The business centre operators were invited and they explained that they were doing so in order to cover the cost of their Internet subscription, their time and intellect. At that point, we told applicants to do their registration anywhere they can and just bring the documents since we could not force the business owners to collect any amount.
“It is not true that they are within the premises because they are not allowed here. It is also false that we do not have information desk.”
Contacted, the spokesman for the Service, James Sunday, an Assistant Comptroller of Immigration, said the Comptroller General of NIS, Muhammad Babandede, has ordered immediate probe into the allegations, insisting that anyone found culpable would be dealt with.
He said: “The CG has given a directive for the investigation of the allegations and that is what we are doing. I can tell you for sure that we do not have accredited agents.
“The guidelines for application for international passport are clearly stated in our website. We also sent out our customer feedback number, 07080607900 and email address nis.servicom@nigeriaimmigration.gov.ng for Nigerians to contact us.
“The problem is that Nigerians like to look for shortcut and so they fall into the hands of people who fleece them. They prefer to do things through the backdoor. They need to know that every office opened by the NIS has a duty to serve them.”