Immigration Goes After Passport Racketeers In Imo

Disenchanted by the menace of touts in processing international passports, the comptroller of Immigration Service, Imo State Command, Patrick Ebegbune, has said Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) is determined to phase out touting in the system.

He said the Service has provided an enabling environment through its functional website for every applicant to access its services and make the necessary documentation and payments.

Ebegbune disclosed this while interacting with newsmen in Owerri, the capital of Imo State.

He said NIS, through its public relations office, has been able to sensitize applicants of international passports on the need to go online using the NIS Website and follow due process in filling out their application forms.

“Honestly, if the applicants can leverage the website technology services provided by the NIS and Ministry of Interior, the touts will naturally fizzle out.

“The simple instructions are to go to the Website, download whatever form you want to download, using your laptop or computer or tablet or even your smartphone, fill out the necessary form and attach the needed documents. If they do this, the touts will not remain in business because there’s nobody to patronize them. That’s basically the problem.

“Honestly, we are doing a lot on our own to chase the touts away, but unfortunately, the International Passport applicants continue to patronise them. Herein lies our worry.

“Obviously, it’s a two-way thing. NIS has done its own part; it’s left for the applicants to jettison the patronage of touts since it’s for their own overall benefits.

“One, it’s relatively cheaper, and secondly, they are sure of the originality of what they are doing, and thirdly, it will drastically reduce, to the barest minimum, the issues of external contacts”.

He pointed out that these touts are not usually helping matters because, at times, they assist the applicants in forging documents that often land them into trouble, leading to queuing their passport applications.

According to him, this is one of NIS’s major challenges. He insists that they are not relenting in their dogged efforts to phase them out totally.

On the issue of the command moving to its permanent site to enjoy a good working environment, the Comptroller highlighted that the site is about 60 per cent completed, saying Kemi Nanna Nandap, the nation’s new comptroller-general of NIS, is very committed to seeing the state command move to the new permanent site before the end of the year.