The Nigeria Immigration Service has apologised to a United States-based Nigerian, Sage Vincent Ike, over the difficulties he encountered while renewing his Nigerian passport, describing an alleged $150 payment demanded for third-party passport collection as illegal.
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The apology followed a series of posts by Ike on X, where he alleged that he spent more than ₦1 million and endured a four-month ordeal before receiving his renewed Nigerian passport, despite the Federal Government’s ongoing passport reforms.
Responding to his complaints, the NIS expressed regret over the inconvenience and emotional distress caused by the experience.
“The Nigeria Immigration Service regrets the inconvenience and emotional distress this experience may have caused you. Kindly accept our sincere apologies,” the agency wrote.
The Service explained that duplicate passport applications are usually subjected to a rigorous verification process to protect the integrity of Nigeria’s passport issuance system.
It, however, distanced itself from the alleged $150 payment said to have been demanded to allow a representative collect the passport on Ike’s behalf.
“We also wish to state that the payment of $150 for the secondary collection of a passport is illegal. Applicants are strongly advised not to patronise touts or unauthorised third parties,” the NIS stated.
According to the Service, a duly signed letter of authorisation from an applicant is sufficient to enable an authorised representative collect a passport.
“Kindly check your Direct Message for further resolution,” the agency added.
Ike had narrated that he applied for passport renewal in March 2026 because his passport was due to expire in May. He said he had already paid for a trip to Japan, a 15-day Princess Cruise covering Japan and South Korea, and a planned visit to Nigeria.
According to him, his biometric appointment was initially fixed for March 19 at the Nigerian Consulate in Atlanta, but after driving about three hours from North Carolina, he discovered that the office had been closed for the Eid-el-Fitr holiday without prior notice.
“I drove three hours from North Carolina, only to arrive and discover the Consulate was closed for the Salah holiday. There was no email notification, no website update on Google office hours, no text, and my appointment still showed March 19. The only notice was a poster at the gate,” he wrote.
Ike said he eventually completed his biometric capture on March 27 poster at the gate,” he wrote.
Ike said he eventually completed his biometric capture on March 27 and paid $230 for a 10-year passport, including the correction of an error in the arrangement of his names, which was processed as a change of data.
Despite providing a self-addressed envelope, he claimed he was required to pay an additional $50 for the passport to be mailed to him, bringing his total payment in the United States to $280, equivalent to about ₦414,400.
Although his acknowledgement slip indicated that the passport would be ready on April 1, Ike said officials informed him that the date was automatically generated by the system and that processing would instead take between three and six weeks.
He said that after months without receiving the passport, repeated attempts to contact the Minister of Interior, Dr. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, and the Nigeria Immigration Service through email, social media and WhatsApp yielded no result.
“Every effort ended in silence. No positive result, no reply except later with zero effect,” he wrote.
Frustrated by the delay, Ike said he contacted a retired immigration officer in Nigeria, who requested ₦260,000 to initiate another passport application before his arrival in the country.
He said he later paid an additional ₦100,000 after officials allegedly explained that a fresh change-of-data approval had to be processed in Abuja because he had already completed biometrics in Atlanta.
Ike further claimed that after waiting several days without progress, he was asked to pay another ₦100,000 because the passport application initiated in Atlanta had to be completed before another could be processed.
“At that point, I had spent ₦460,000 in Nigeria alone, on top of what I had already paid in the USA,” he stated.
He alleged that after the Atlanta passport was eventually produced on July 15, a family friend sent to collect it was asked to either present a letter of authorisation or pay $150 before the document would be released.
According to him, the payment was made because they were racing against time to meet a courier deadline.
He said he also paid $176.35 through DHL to ship the passport to Nigeria, while hotel bills, feeding expenses and the cost of rescheduling his return flight continued to increase because he could not travel back to the United States without the document.
Ike said he eventually received the passport on July 22 and returned to the United States on July 24.
“Beyond the money is the emotional toll of ‘Nigeria has happened to me’ — the uncertainty, the frustration, the helplessness of watching fully paid international trips lost because of administrative inefficiency,” he wrote.
He added that the matter was not about politics, but about the lived experience of ordinary Nigerians, especially those in the diaspora.
“We are constantly told that the passport system has been reformed and modernised, yet many citizens continue to bear enormous financial and emotional costs because of bureaucratic bottlenecks,” he stated.
The NIS has now assured Ike of further resolution while warning applicants against patronising touts or unauthorised third parties in the passport collection process.
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