Wednesday, 26 June 2019

Nigeria: Don't let your passport be handled like junk mail

A few weeks ago, a Nigerian citizen vandalised many vehicles around the offices of the Nigerian High Commission in London out of frustration with their poor customer service practices, not excusable, but understandable. [Punch]
In reaction to that event, the Nigerian High Commission in London has released a poorly written notice on their website that invalidates the use of third parties or electronic booking systems for applying for Nigerian passports.

However, there is one requirement that I cannot ignore, written in their own words, “applicants are required to submit pre-paid self address special delivery envelop on completion of bio-metric capturing.
A passport is a critical identity document that cannot be allowed to fall into the wrong hands, there must be a chain of custody from when a passport leaves the Nigerian High Commission to when the recipient verifiably receives it.
They can employ a low-cost postal option with next-day delivery, secure, signed for with proof of delivery or returned to the sender, all this with tracking and tracing along with knowing where the responsibility lies if the document is lost. Introducing a parallel insecure archaic service does not cut it and this idea should be stopped before more damage is done to the literally irretrievable bad reputation of this rotten bureaucracy.
I advise the Nigerian High Commission to avail themselves of this service and hope the staff would at the very least stop behaving like they are impervious to using systems that work.
This is what the Royal Mail does - Royal Mail Signed For® 1st Class

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