A racket about passport, the travel document much sought after by the middle class, is the kernel of the latest allegation of corruption and abuse of office in the Interior Ministry, headed by Abba Moro, who has been enmeshed in controversy since he assumed office in 2011.
A new electronic passport was introduced on August 1, launched by President Goodluck Jonathan.
The passport, which has 64 pages, costs N15,000 for applicants aged between 18 and 60 years, and N8,750 for those aged 60 years and above.
But rather than applicants being charged only the rate Jonathan publicly announced on August 1, the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) demands additional N2,000 said to be the cost of delivering the passport to the home of an applicant by courier.
Charging for service not rendered
The extra fee on the passport application form comes under ‘Address Verification Charges’.
A courier firm, GWPost, printed at the top of the form, is supposed to be the official courier for the NIS and beneficiary of the N2,000. The official receipt states that the fee is for ‘Delivery Pre Advice’.
It is alleged that Moro has an interest in GWPost.
Protest by passport applicants
Passport applicants at the passport offices in Ikoyi and FESTAC Town, both in Lagos, have protested against the additional charge, saying passport is not delivered to their homes.
A source close to Immigration authorities told TheNiche that the complaint is reasonable because applicants have to be physically present at the passport office to thumbprint their passports before they can be issued and activated.
“Members of the public raised issues with Delivery Pre Advice, especially as it is not optional, and that they are still required to physically thumbprint to activate their passport,” the Immigration source said.
A member of the House of Representatives from Lagos State was said to be furious when asked to pay N2,000 in addition to the N15,000 official price.
He threatened to raise the matter in the House of Representatives, but the passport control officer (PCO) placated him, TheNiche learnt
Change in tactic, same intent
Immigration has since changed the strategy for collecting the extra fee.
The source said: “Now they have changed the purpose of the charge to say it is the cost of address verification. They have changed the receipt to that effect to read ‘Address Verification Form’.
“But the intention is the same – to divert the N2,000 to GWPost, a company allegedly appointed by Moro.
“Immigration authorities don’t know anything about the N2,000. And even if there is the need to deliver passports, highly sensitive security documents that should not be in the hands of unauthorised persons, to the home addresses of their owners, Immigration has the manpower and resources to do that.
“We have a transport department, in addition to many officers doing nothing.”
However, NIS spokesman, Obuah Chukwuma, denied that the N2,000 delivery charge is a means of fleecing passport applicants.
“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,” he explained.
“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.”
Moro’s Media Assistant, George Udoh, could not be reached on the telephone. And a text message sent to him for comment on the matter was not replied at press time.
When TheNiche called the telephone number of GWPost on the payment receipt, an employee (name withheld) said the company delivers passports to the homes of applicants.
When asked why applicants are forced to pay for delivery service, even when some do not want the service, the employee could not offer any explanation, other than saying that payment is made directly to Immigration.
Grouses in Interior Ministry
Since he assumed office in 2011, Moro has allegedly been involved in corruption, impunity, nepotism, and high handedness.
In March this year, the Interior Ministry extorted N1,000 each from job applicants in the NIS and Nigerian Prisons Service (NPS), collecting a total N710 million. Nineteen applicants died in stampedes during the recruitment exercise.
Parastatals under the Interior Ministry are the NIS, NPS, Fire Service, and Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC).
Abuse of office, corruption, and impunity are said to be rife in all the agencies. But they are worse in the NPS and Immigration.
In the NPS, there are additional allegations of favouritism, certificate forgery, extortion of inmates, and of junior officers being promoted above their seniors.
Competence sacrificed for nepotism
The sleaze and the injustice in Immigration, which led to a fight between Moro, and former Comptroller General of Immigration, Rose Uzoma, over staff recruitment resulted in her ouster in January 2013.
Uzoma reportedly disagreed with Moro over his alleged penchant for staffing Immigration with people from his Idoma ethnic nationality in Benue State.
“The woman had complained to those close to her that the powers that be were literarily forcing her to engage a lot of people from a particular ethnic nationality in the Immigration Service, shortly before she was shown the way out”, said the source, who did not want his name in print.
The departure of Uzoma became a major loss to heads of all the parastatals in the Interior Ministry.
Prior to that time, comptrollers-general were empowered to recruit staff on Grade Levels one to seven. After that fight, the right was withdrawn and handed over to the board and the head of service of the federation.
Although the Fire Service, NSCDC, Immigration, and NPS are under the control of a board which is responsible for the appointment and promotion of staff, the role of the board has been allegedly eroded by corruption and meddling from higher quarters.
The source added: “The corruption in the board is responsible for these promotion scams. If you attend an interview without following it up at the board, you are sure to lose out despite your score in the promotion exam,” alleged another source from the Fire Service.
“The board is headed by a director/secretary and is answerable to the minister of the interior who is the chairman. But since Abba Moro became the Minister, corruption and nepotism have climbed the wall.
“As with recruitment, after every promotion exam, the minister takes the list, goes home, and inserts the names of his family members and friends at the expense of other candidates.
“When he finishes, he sends the names to the board to release it, and the board will add its own. That is why, in the latest promotion, you saw some names in capital letters and others in small letters.”
The source alleged that Moro has turned the agencies into a personal fiefdom. “As in employment where the minister has turned the place into his house, he makes sure that all Idoma people are employed or promoted above every other group before he releases the lists.
“As in the Immigration exercise that led to the loss of lives, he had already shared the appointments before going to the stadiums to do that charade that cost the lives of Nigerians.
“The level of corruption and nepotism in the board has led to this displeasure arising from the promotion of juniors over their seniors.
“Go to the Ministry of Interior and you will think you are in an Idoma village. This is the result of so many middle aged Idoma villagers employed by Moro and dumped in the ministry doing nothing, at the expense of younger and able-bodied Nigerians looking for work.
“In fact, Abba Moro has destroyed the paramilitary services in the Interior Ministry through corruption and nepotism. What is manifesting in the Prisons is a product of his destructive and stagnant leadership in the ministry.
“His style did not go down well with many directors in the board and permanent secretaries in the ministry. But he appears to have the power to remove them. He has removed up to four directors and permanent secretaries who opposed him. He must be very powerful then.”
Moro denies allegations
Moro’s Press Secretary, George Udoh, said there is no truth in the allegation that his boss perpetrates corruption and nepotism.
“We challenge anybody making these allegations to come forward with the fact to substantiate them. Nobody can prove that the minister has ever influenced recruitment into any of the agencies under this ministry let alone that he recruited his own people into service.
“There is no way the minister can circumvent the rules guiding promotions in the agencies. The rules are laid down and nobody can bend them to either favour some persons or victimise others,” Udoh insisted.