Nigerians in the United Kingdom have expressed displeasure over delays, long waiting times and poor organisation that has characterised the conduct of the Special Passport Intervention. Across social media platforms, many Nigerians living in the UK decried the difficulty of accessing the passport services that the National Immigration Service (NIS) promised months ago. The NIS first announced the intervention in August.
The exercise aims to help Nigerians in the UK obtain new passports, renew existing ones, and resolve pending passport applications. It is also an effort to clear the backlog of passport applications among Nigerians in the UK. PREMIUM TIMES reported that the first leg of the exercise was to take place between 7 and 19 September in London and Manchester.
Last week, the NIS directed applicants to submit their applications online and make payments through the NIS Passport Application Portal before attending the intervention exercise. It declared that applicants who “fail to do so will not be attended to.” However, videos and images of a crowd of Nigerians standing outside the intervention centre in Manchester surfaced online on Monday, with many expressing frustration over the poor treatment of applicants.
Nigerian applicants complained that they were delayed for hours despite submitting their applications days earlier. A Nigerian, Agbaeze Ejem, who said he attended the exercise in London, explained on X that he arrived at the venue at 9 a.m. but couldn’t complete the exercise until hours later, despite the low turnout at the time of his arrival.
Another Nigerian with the username @_aadeolaa wrote, “ A 9am appointment is yet to be attended to at 12 noon. Mind you, people paid £70 for these shambles.” A Nigerian social worker based in Manchester, with the username Iamlyday1, criticised the government for its persistent mistreatment of its citizens.