TheCable

The Nigerian embassy in Germany, on Wednesday, visited Cologne, a city in Germany, to conduct a passport intervention exercise.

The Nigerian embassy is situated in Berlin, the capital of the country.

According to Yusuf Tuggar, Nigeria’s ambassador to Germany, the decision to issue passports in Cologne was an intervention to save applicants the trouble of travelling to Berlin and Frankfurt to renew their passports.

The ambassador said the embassy also hopes to visit other cities to conduct a similar exercise.

“Today the Embassy of Nigeria Germany was in Cologne issuing passports to Nigerians,” Tuggar said in a Twitter post.

“It’s an intervention, first of its kind, to save applicants the trouble of travelling to Berlin and Frankfurt to renew their passports. We hope to visit other cities and plead for your cooperation.”

Today the Embassy of Nigeria Germany was in Cologne issuing passports to Nigerians. It’s an intervention, first of its kind, to save applicants the trouble of travelling to Berlin and Frankfurt to renew their passports. We hope to visit other cities and plead for your cooperation pic.twitter.com/JJKPzLOAKs

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— Amb. Yusuf Tuggar (@YusufTuggar) February 16, 2022

Last year, Nigerians had complained of inability to get passports from the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) due to a scarcity of passport booklets in issuing centres within and outside the country.

TheCable had reported how contractors in charge of the passport booklets were not able to source for forex from official sources and had to resort to the parallel market.

As a result of the scarcity,  the house of representatives gave the NIS 72 hours to clear the backlog of applications for passport booklets.

Subsequently, the NIS suspended the request for passports until June 2021 in order to clear the backlogs.

However, in January 2022, the NIS said the delay in passport processing will be over by March.

Isa Idris, acting comptroller-general of NIS, also said the enhanced e-passport service is part of the efforts put in place to address the situation.

Meanwhile, in February 2022, the Nigerian embassy in Germany had announced a disabling of the passport appointment system and asked applicants to schedule appointments via email.