The extra N2,000 charged by the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) purportedly to deliver the new passport to applicants at home by courier has been suspended, TheNiche has learnt.
The passport, launched on August 1, 2014 by President Goodluck Jonathan, has 64 pages. It costs N15,000 for applicants aged between 18 and 60 years, and N8,750 for those aged 60 and above.
When Jonathan announced the fee at the launch he did not mention a N2,000 delivery charge, yet GWPost was appointed the courier firm to deliver the passport to applicants at the extra cost, in an alleged racket by top NIS and Internal Ministry officials.
But sources in Immigration have confirmed that the N2,000 charge has now been suspended by the Federal Government through a circular from the office of the Internal Affairs Minister, Abba Moro to the Immigration authorities.
When TheNiche asked NIS Spokesman, Obuah Chukwuma, to confirm the story, he said: “I cannot confirm that to you now. I have not seen any correspondence concerning that. As a public servant, I deal with correspondence.”
Asked whether passport applicants still pay the N2,000 extra fee, he retorted: “I cannot talk on that matter. I think some people are discussing something somewhere. But I can’t confirm anything.
TheNiche reported exclusively on October 5, 2014 the allegation of corruption and abuse of office in the Interior Ministry, which included passport racketeering.
At that time, Chukwuma, denied that the N2,000 delivery charge was a means of fleecing passport applicants. He claimed it was for the verification of applicants’ address.
His words: “This N2,000 is not just passport delivery; it is address verification and authentication. If you pay that N2,000 and choose to collect your passport on your own, fine and good.
“But you know we have security challenges nationally and globally. It has been discovered that people who are involved in international crime, especially in the Middle East, are even from European and American countries.
“So, there is need to verify and ascertain that the addresses people are giving us are really their addresses.
“We have situations whereby people give us any address. Now, a security issue may come up, security agents will ask us to give them the particular address of that person.
“We go into our data base and pick that address, and lo and behold, when they go there, they find that the address does not exist or the person never lived there.
“So, our interest is to ascertain, verify, and authenticate information given to Immigration concerning where people live.”
When told that criminals may hijack passports through courier delivery to commit fraud, Chukwuma said: “It is not possible. We have not heard of any incident concerning that. Even abroad, you apply for passport online and it is delivered to you by post.
“We are getting there gradually, whereby you just stay in your house, apply for your passport online, and it is processed and delivered to you by post. But a whole lot of things will come on board before then.”