A report by the Nigerian consulate general in New York has revealed that there are outstanding passport requests dating back to 2018 that have yet to be responded to.

Consulate general Lot Egopija disclosed this in a report of the activities of the consulate in 2021.

The consulate stated that it embarked on passport intervention exercise in Chicago from August 26 to 28, 2021, noting that there are outstanding passports between 2018 and 2019 in Chicago, Minnesota and Indianapolis.

“Also, there are outstanding requests for passports from Nigerian community in Philadelphia, Minnestota, Ohio, Michigan, Massachusetts and Rhode Island,” it said.

Nigeria’s consulate general in New York, however, said it produced 14,758 passports in 2021 amid the perennial shortage of booklets that hampered smooth operations of the passport section.

The report said the shortage of passports booklets hindered operations at the consulate in 2021 and in spite of repeated requests to the headquarters, the consulate did not receive enough booklets to meet its demand.

The document noted that the turnaround time for passport production for 2021 average was 12 to 14 weeks.

On visa, the consulate disclosed that it issued 2,240 visas of different categories in the year under review amidst issues of inadequate appointment slots for prospective visa applicants, particularly towards the end of 2021.

However, it stated that the consulate and VFS (the visa processing facility), made efforts to create more slots for visa interviews.

In addition, it stated that 2,224 Emergency Travel Certificates (ETCs) were issued from January to November 2021 while about 900 ETCs were issued in December alone.

“This is a result of inadequate passport booklets to serve the huge number of Nigerians who needed to travel home for the usual end-of-the-year festivities,’’ the report stated.

(NAN)