A Nigerian man living in Italy has taken to social media to share the experiences he encounters while trying to renew his wife’s passport at the Nigeria Embassy in Rome.
The user identified on Twitter as @nosafk, accused the ministry of extorting its citizens under the guise of trying to renew their passports.
He alleged that he paid for the renewal of his wife’s passport and went to the ministry’s website to book an appointment but to his greatest surprise, there was no date on it.
He revealed how the embassy continues issuing passports without an appointment, stating that they will ask you to pay an unofficial amount of money before it can be released.
The man also exposed how your phone will be seized upon entering the embassy.
According to him, he stated that “The embassy of Nigeria in Rome is a big shame to Nigerians. Everyone needs to know what these stupid people do. After writing this they may never renew my Nigeria passport anymore. I don’t even care if they do, but they need to stop extorting Nigerians.”
“My wife needed to renew her Nigerian passport, I paid for 64 pages booklet. I did this because most times if you pay for 32 pages booklet, they will come up with stories like a booklet is not available. And use it to delay your passport. The 64 pages cost more than 32 pages.
Then I went to the embassy website to book the appointment date. There was no appointment. Take a look at the screen-recorded video. You will notice that there is no appointment now till January 2024. I decided to stop there. There is no appointment even till 2080.”
“The wonderful thing is that the embassy keeps issuing passports without appointments. The reason will shock you.
To be able to renew your passport you will have to pay an unofficial amount of money. The amount varies from the person helping you to do it.”
“In my wife’s case, we paid €200 more to someone there to help us renew the passport. This is just to bribe them to do the passport. Even after paying them $137 they were not satisfied. They still wanted me to bribe them to release the passport.”
“Upon entering the embassy, her cellphone was collected from her. She was obligated to submit her cellphone before entering the embassy.
What could they be scared of?
Someone might video their corrupt activities and leak it?
She gave them her cellphone and entered inside.
One oyinbo came inside the embassy and they didn’t seize her cellphone. My wife saw her flaunting her cellphone inside the embassy. Now, why didn’t they do the same to her? Maybe they are scared she might report them to the Italian police.
And if the Italian police get involved, their intelligence might leak everything. It might complicate the Chancery. Even the way they talk and embarrass citizens is very bad. My wife told me about someone who had difficulty speaking English. Instead of them to help, he was mocked.”
“Let’s do simple Maths and figure check the business they’re doing at the embassy.
Assuming they issue 100 passports a day for €200, that’s €20,000 a day and €600,000 a month for 30 days. This is a year is €7.2 million. In just one year.
Na suits dem dey wear.”
“That’s a lot of money. This is the business going on at the Nigerian embassy in Rome. Now you know why there is no appointment till 2080. For you to get scanned you have to pay that unofficial amount. And this is nothing but extortion.”
“If you’re a Nigerian and you believe it is wrong for the Nigerian Embassy to extort your fellow brothers then retweet this as support to end this extortion. Nigerians deserve better.
Passports should be issued without bribes or extra fees.
Many Nigerians have no jobs and may not be able to afford them. We can’t allow this nonsense. If you don’t pay them you won’t get scanned and won’t get your passport” he added.
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