Date Published: 07/28/09

Hon Minister of Foreign Affairs
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Abuja
Nigeria .

Dear Sir,

OPEN LETTER TO THE MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Re: Nigerian Embassy Ireland

I would like to draw your attention to the untold hardship that Nigerians residing in Ireland are currently going through to renew or re-issue an expired passport.

The embassy has not been able to re-issue the new Nigerian biometric passport to applicants who need a new passport or re-issue since May 2009,when it claimed that the machine that prints the passport has been faulty.

One would have expected that the Ambassador knowing fully well the importance of the passport printing machine would have been proactive by providing solution of either arranging for the repair of the machine or replacing it with immediate effect ,but uptil the 29 th of July when I called in at the Embassy to have my passport re-issued, all that the embassy staff were saying is that they are still working on repairing the machine.

Several Nigerians resident in Ireland have been adversely affected by the non challant attitude of the Ambassador . I was supposed to travel to Nigeria to bury my father ,but I could not embark on the trip because of the inability of the Nigerian Embassy to re-issue my passport, to enable me renew my residency.

During this period of rebranding Nigeria, this is not a good image for the country as we are the laughing stock of the host country who are mocking us for not being able to fix an ordinary passport machine for over three months.

Sir I would like you to look into this issue with utmost urgency and expedite action to save Nigerians from the untold hardship and the embarrassment from the Irish government.

Kind Regards

Lanre Olayinka