TheCable

The senate has urged the federal government to consider using postal services to send renewed national passports to Nigerians in diaspora.

The upper legislative chamber also asked the federal government to increase the number of passport renewal centres abroad.

The lawmakers made the recommendations at Wednesday’s plenary session  after considering a motion on the need to ease the difficulty in renewing passports in various countries.

Citizens living in the diaspora are required to apply for their passport renewal online and then have their photograph and biometric data captured at the nearest consulate or centre at a given date.

But they have often lamented how stressful the process is — sometimes they wait for as long as five months to get their document.

Urhoghide Aisagbonriodion, Edo south senator who sponsored the motion, said the worst-hit countries facing such challenge are the US, Canada, Italy, the UK and Austria.

“In the United States, for example, there are only four centers (one in each of four states) where Nigerians can renew their passports and they are Washington DC, Atlanta, New York and California,” he said.

“That only four centers serve the whole of the United States is enough problem in itself until we have to consider the fact that Nigerians in the remaining 46 states in the US have to travel to the centre closest to them.”

He said those who get speedy attention are mostly the ones that pay middlemen involved in the process.

“The reason given for requiring physical presence is that applicants need to be captured electronically for the new passport. This excuse is not tenable since fresh capturing should not be demanded of someone who already has his captured bio-data in the database,” he said.

“In some or all of the renewal centers, there exist middlemen who are either working with or for officials of the Nigerian embassies (who) are not Nigerians and demand for money from Nigerians to book a capture date with officials of the embassy for them.”

The lawmaker said the practice is unacceptable, and that one of the ways to address the extortion and hardship is for the embassies to start using postal service.

The senate subsequently adopted the motion and mandated its committees on interior and foreign affairs to engage relevant government agencies to consider posting the renewed passports.

The move comes two weeks after the federal government launched a temporary passport for Nigerians abroad who want to return home but whose national passport is not available.