Obtaining a Nigerian Passport: Comrade Niyi Aborisade
Nigerian passport is perhaps one of the most expensive passports in the whole world.
In the UK, you have to pay over £100 before you are issued with a Nigeria passport. The difficult aspect is how to make payment online to a company located in America. People have been complaining of the obstacles that they are facing in making payment. You must submit your Credit Card statement and copy of your Identity before you can make payment online. This system is another rip off because the company will include their own commission on top of the passport fee which is about $10. This method of payment is just enriching another company not even located in Nigeria and thus Nigeria cannot even benefit on its Tax.
Another major problem is that wherever you are in the UK, you have to travel down to Nigeria High Commission in London for biometrics registration or what they call interview before passport is issued. The passport has a lifetime of 5 years that cannot be renewed but re-issued, therefore at every 5 years you must visit London if you live in the UK. No reason has been advanced for this unreasonable time limit.
In the advance world obtaining your country passport is not difficult and not as expensive as our own Nigeria passport. British Passport only cost £72.50 for a full adult passport with a life span of 10 years. It is not even cumbersome for her citizen to obtain unless you are going through naturalisation procedure.
It is time Nigeria do something to alleviate the sufferings of her people and instead of travelling to London for Biometrics, they can liase with post-office for the biometric registration once you submit your documents by post. This system is working well in Britain and can work well for us
We at Nigeria Politics Forum therefore call on Federal Government of Nigeria to look into these anomalies and correct the rigid regime of 5 years’ limit and method of payment. We are of the opinion that the whole system should be reviewed.
